


Moby Dick's New Residents

by roseanne



Category: One Piece
Genre: Brother Feels, Brotherly Love, English is my fourth language, Family Drama, Family Feels, I feel I may regret the tags thing, I may change things here, Little Sisters, Luffy Being Luffy, Marcy OC, Overprotective, i will be back, my first post here, not sure what I am doing, overprotective ace, this is fun
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-03
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-08-12 20:26:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 64,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7947871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseanne/pseuds/roseanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ace was supposed to feel proud and delighted when he saw his siblings wanted posters. Then why was he feeling anger and dread. Oh yes, because Luffy was 15 and Marcy was 16. AU 2 YEARS before the canon, OC.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The wanted poster

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t own one piece (I wish, Ace would still be with us), this is my Second Fic and the first to post here (YAY, the first is still being posted/wrote in fanfiction.net). And I still don’t know what the hell I am doing (will I ever know, pleaseeeee tell me).
> 
> I have two beta now :), the wonderful Kurapikababu who checked, as much as she could, this chapter.  
> You totally should check her stories and arts, if you are OP fan you will appreciate it. (I know I do ^^)  
> And the amazing Mercyless, who did great work on editing, and making the whole chapter more presentable.  
> Go check her first fanfiction “Soldier Dream” (mercyless witness), gave some love and encouragement.  
>   
>   
> Warnings:  
> English is my fourth language, and this chapter only partly beat'd. That's all for now folks.

It was early morning; the moon had already disappeared, but the sun had yet to shine in all of its glory. The sound of waves crashing against the ship could be clearly heard.

Some would find the quiet eerie, but Marco preferred these kind of quiet mornings. That probably said something deep and meaningful about him, he pondered.

He hoped they weren’t attacked today. The attacks were entertaining, and a big crew like the Whitebeards needed to be entertained. But supervision of the clean-up afterwards was his duty: repairs, taking care of the wounded, deciding on how to handle (dispose of, usually) the attacking pirates that were _generous_ enough to provide the entertainment, any treasure they had on board of the ship, and the list goes on and on.

How to handle an attack and what to do afterwards was a routine that everyone was quick to learn after joining the crew. However, when he was the person in charge of making it happen, then it was annoying, and he wasn’t in the mood. He would love to have a relaxing day.

He paid several Beli to the News Coo, and after putting several newspapers copies and wanted posters under his arm, headed to the mess hall.

It was early enough that the mess hall was still mostly empty, except for some early birds, those on night watch, the overnight mess hall staff, and some of his fellow commanders who were all having an early breakfast. Ace was eating with the commanders. No, not eating, considering his face was planted in a plate of yellow...something. Grits with butter? He wasn’t sure what it was.

 This was becoming a familiar sight; especially the face-planted Ace, Marco thought. Haruta was poking him with a spoon, and Jozu (God bless him) was trying to stop him, while Vista and Rakuyo were betting on when would he wake up this time and the reason (Haruta’s poking?). Izo was shaking his head and eating his chocolate crepe, the one that only Thatch could make it to his liking.

The familiar sight was actually new one, less than five months old to be exact. He didn’t mind it being a familiar sight.

Five months ago, who would have believed that Ace, the same Ace that vehemently refused to join their crew and tried to assassin their father three times a day (in average), would be eating (sleeping!) on the table, all relaxed, Whitebeard pirates all around him. It hadn’t been an easy transition. For a while, he had been sure that Ace would leave them and try to begin anew.

 _But here he is, one of us, our brother_ , Marco couldn’t help the small smile that adorned his face at this thought. And now (only after five months), they were considering appointing him a second division commander to fill the vacant post. _It shows how well liked he is._

Thatch, bringing plates of food, full of meat, fruits, and pancakes, spotted him and shouted, “Good morning, Marco. Anything interesting in the news?” cutting his musings short.

“Good morning, yoi. See for yourself, didn’t have the time to check yet.”

Marco sat in the vacant seat beside Ace, Haruta, who was still poking him, said, “Morning, Marco.”

He answered back, and handed some of the newspapers and wanted posters around, placing some in the table in front of Ace, which finally accomplished what all Haruta’s poking couldn’t achieve: Ace stirred, waking up.

“Damn you, Marco!” Rakuyo shouted.

“Pay up!” Vista laughed.

Marco gave them both his most unimpressed look.       

Ace, still sleepy, was oblivious to the dispute happening around him (and because of him), and was still stretching his hands above his head. Rubbing his eyes, Ace glanced around, and spotted who was now filling the vacant seat beside him.

“Morning Marco.”

“Good morning, Ace, yoi,” he said, amusement dancing in his eyes.

“What... Oh, I have food all over my face, don’t I?” he asked, taking the towel that Izo was handing him from across the table.

The snickering all around him was enough of an answer.

“Ooh, more food, thanks Thatch!” He dug into the food, unbothered.

His narcolepsy was as amusing as it was worrying in Marco’s eyes. He tried several times talking about it with him. But Ace only shrugged, and said that he had made it this far, hadn’t he? And Marco couldn’t argue with that, but he was worried. At least he was taking the new medicine that the nurses gave him.

Jozu was already half through the newspaper, when he said, “New rookies from East blue, like you Ace.”

Ace hummed not stopping in his self-appointed mission of inhaling the food in front of him. Thatch, coming from behind him with more plates of food, said, “No one is like our Ace, imagine another one with his appetite! I don’t think the world could handle it.”

Vista snorted. “Appetite…” He said mockingly, and added, “It looks more like black-hole to me.”

“What page?” Marco asked.

Thatch, who was now reading from above Jozu shoulder, said, “They look cute,” and then, frowning, he added, “young.”

“26;” Jozu answered.

 _Hmmm, young indeed_ , Marco wondered, looking at the right page.

“They couldn’t be older than 16,” he said out loud.

“Actually 15 and barely 16,” came the strained answer from Ace, (when had he stopped eating?) looking all tense, staring at the wanted posters accompanying the article like his life depended on it.

“Ace?” Marco tried.

Ace tensed some more, his hands were clutching the table. No, not tense, more like a volcano before its eruption.

“Ace…” he tried again, tensing himself.

“What, you know them or something?” Thatch asked, oblivious to the danger that was Ace. He tried to casually put his hand around Ace’s shoulders.

Marco reacted in reflex, pushing Thatch out of the way and onto the floor.

“What the hell?!” Thatch shouted, when Ace lit up literally. Likely Marco wasn’t the only one that felt the danger, both Jozu and Izo were able to get everyone out of harm's way, but not the table or the food.

Thatch opened his mouth, but a sharp look from Marco shut him up.

Marco approached Ace carefully, it was true that fire couldn’t hurt him (almost nothing could, except those damn sea stones), but being careful never _hurt_.

“Ace… ” he tried softly.

Ace was still looking at those wanted posters clutching them in his hands. The fact that they weren't burning was all the confirmation needed, to know that they were the **origins** of the situation at hand.

“Ace,” he tried stronger this time.  

Ace stirred and looked at him, still clutching the posters in his hands.

“Who are they?” he tried.

Ace opened his mouth and then closed it.

Tried again.

And again, finally he choked, “Luffy and Marcy.”

As if those names were supposed to tell them everything they needed to know.

Marco looked around him at his siblings, seeing blank faces all around, looking similar to his own.

“Your siblings,” Thatch suddenly said, while getting comfortable down on the floor.

“Yes,” came the whispered answer. And, if it was possible, his fire shone brighter.

“They weren't supposed to set sail yet?” came the conclusion/question from Jozu.

“Damn right, they weren't supposed to!” Ace yelled heatedly.

“What the hell are they thinking?!” he raged. Now that he was talking he wasn’t stopping.

“We promised to set sail at seventeen. I can’t believe they broke their promise! I mean, Luffy is an idiot but he takes his promises really seriously and Marcy is smart, I mean really smart, she knows not to set sail with Luffy...” he trailed off, lost in his thoughts.

Silence filled the room. As he eyed the damage done to the table, Marco thought it was a good thing it was still early morning, and no one came running here. It could have been worse, much worse.

“You think they are in some kind of trouble?” the unexpected question was asked by Haruta, who was standing behind Jozu. With all eyes on him, including Ace’s (who was still sitting), Haruta continued, “I mean, you said that they promised, and they take promises seriously, and at least one of them is smart, so to break that promise...” He didn’t need to continue for the meaning of his words to sink in.

Ace’s fire deflated, his whole body slumping. He almost fell from the bench in his hurry to stand up, while repeating, “You’re right, you’re right, you’re right...” Marco helped him stay standing.

“They are definitely in trouble, what was I thinking, they would not break their promise, especially Luffy, for anything less than a disaster.” His face changed from despair to urgency.

’’I need to go.” He glanced at the papers (the ones that didn’t burn were scattered on the floor), and picked one, opening the right page.

“I need to go now,” he said, trying to sprint while reading.

“Oi, Ace. Ace,” Marco called, standing in his way.

“I will take Striker, the article said that they already entered Paradise.”

“Ace!” louder this time

“Marco, please tell pops...”

Marco needed to physically put his hand on Ace’s mouth to stop the torrent of words.

“Ace,” he said gently. “You are not alone, yoi.” Ace was paying attention to him now, so he let his arm drop.

Marco was almost sure he knew what Ace’s answer would be...

“But they are my responsibility, I am their big brother.”

He was right, Ace was begging them to understand.

And they did. They really did, more than Ace could ever imagine.

“No, they aren’t.”

Ace looked surprised, then furious, and was about to start shouting bloody murder, when Marco continued, “They are our responsibility, that what it means to be a part of our **family**.”

“If they are important to you, then they are important to us,” Izo added. He had started to help Jozu and Vista in the cleanup, after Ace had extinguished his fire earlier.

Ace seemed to wake from his trance, seeing the damage his fire did and hearing those words. Looking guilty, he said, “Sorry guys, I...” He didn’t seem to know how to continue.

But he didn’t need to. Thatch jumped up, brushing off some of the dirt on his pants, and said, “Don’t worry about it,” while putting his arm (successfully this time) around Ace’s shoulders.

“Seriously, we needed a new table. But Marco here is stingy.”

“Hey!” Marco shouted in indignation. _He had a budget, and there were priorities._

“Now, he doesn’t have choice!” He was steering Ace out of the dining area and onto the deck.

“Anyway, let’s go talk to pops.”

“Hey Thatch. Stop running away, and leaving us with cleanup!” Haruta shouted from behind him.

“Can’t hear you!” Thatch singsang loudly.

“Let’s go to his room, he wasn’t on the deck 10 minutes ago,” Marco said, trailing right behind them.

.

.

...

_Knock, knock._

Whitebeard stopped his conversation with Curiel about some repairs to Moby 3.

“Enter,” he said.

It wasn’t that surprising that people sought him in the early morning for private conversation, especially the nurses.

But to his surprise, three of his sons entered. Thatch had his arm slung over Ace’s shoulders and was whispering to him. Marco was right behind them, observing them... No, observing Ace, his youngest son. Whitebeard’s eyes narrowed.  

Now that he eyed his youngest, he couldn’t help but notice how pale he was, head lowered obscuring his face.

He gave Marco a questioning look, who in return gave him a pointed look and a shrug; he would know soon enough.

“Good morning pops! We aren’t interrupting, are we?” Thatch said cheerily. His ability to stay cheerful under any circumstance was a blessing as much as it was a curse, depending on the situation. He would go with it being a blessing in this case, for now anyway.

“Not at all, my sons,” Whitebeard bellowed, trying to be as cheerful as Thatch (and failing to reach that _simple_ goal).

“Curiel and I here, were discussing some of the repairs...”

“Upgrades,” Curiel had to correct.

“…to Moby 3,” Whitebeard continued, ignoring him.

“Curiel, I have to discuss this with you. We have a budget, yoi,” Marco said, relaxing against the wall near the door.

“What do you need?” Whitebeard asked, when none of them spoke.

Ace looked up to him, opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He looked so defeated, so lost; it broke his heart to see his youngest son looking like that. It reminded him of that night when Ace came to ask him **that question**.

“Ace,” he said softly, “what is it?”

“Pops,” he choked. “I need your help.”

It took a lot out of him to admit that. He was so independent, so free; admitting needing help was foreign concept for him.

_He would learn, being a family was all about depending on one another._

At that moment, Whitebeard vowed to do whatever in his power to help his son, so that he could learn how to depend on them. _Small steps_.

“My siblings,” Ace whispered finally, his eyes drooping to the floor, and that was all he was able to say.

Both Marco and Thatch explained the situation as best as they could. Ace didn’t raise his head once.

 _Hmmm,_ Whitebeard thought. He understood now: Ace was feeling guilty, scared, and very hopeless.

He turned to Curiel, who was still standing there, listening and observing the situation calmly.

“Curiel, go to the Communication room. Tell them to call all our allies, and find out who is in Paradise or close to it. And bring me a Den Den Mushi when you get back.”

“Yes, pops,” he answered, and patted Ace on the shoulder on his way out.

“Ace,” he said, and waited until his son raised his head.

“Why don’t you tell me little a bit about your siblings?” An expression of raw pain flashed in his eyes. Whitebeard continued, “So, we can understand how they think, and what will they do next?”

Ace hastily looked up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time, still unbelieving that he would really help, searching for an answer. Finding (or not finding) whatever he was looking for, he dropped his eyes.

Everybody waited for him to speak.  

It took him some time to gather his disoriented thoughts, but Ace steeled himself and took deep breath. “Luffy and Marcy are troublemakers. Luffy is more of a trouble magnet than a troublemaker. He is a cheerful idiot. He can find amusement and laughter in everything...”

“Reminds me of someone,” Marco muttered, as Thatch spluttered.

Ace ignored them both. “He is headstrong and really stubborn. He can be oblivious and trust anyone, but he has good instincts when it comes to people. He is a people person, he could make friends with anyone if he put his mind into it.” He offered a small smile while saying that, his first smile since he entered.

 _There is a story here,_ Whitebeard mused, and wondered if he would ever hear it.

“His dream, you know, is to become the pirate king.”

Whitebeard raised an eyebrow, while Thatch snickered. Ace laughed a little. “I know, it’s funny, but when you hear him say it, you can’t help but believe him...” he trailed off.

“Marcy,” Ace continued, “is more complicated. She is really smart, but as smart as she is, she can be stupid too. She has a fiery temper, even shitty-gramps and Dadan are afraid of it. She can be impulsive and stubborn too.” He grimaced as if remembering something unpleasant.

“And manipulative too. I can’t remember how many times she suckered us into doing things by crying... It’s because of her upbringing.” He looked angry, his shoulders hunched more, and he dropped his eyes back to the floor. _It was a sore subject_ , _a_ _painful failure,_ Whitebeard noticed.

From hearing and watching Ace’s reactions, he knew how important and precious those brats were to his son, and it did make him quite curious about them. He wanted to meet them and see if the affection they felt for their big brother was as great as the one Ace felt for them.

“Ace, to where would the brats go if they needed help? Do they know anyone, beside you, in Paradise or the New World?” Ace was shaking his head furiously when he suddenly stopped.

“Shanks,” he blurted out.

“Red-Hair?” the exclamation came from Marco.

“Yeah, Luffy knows him. Apparently he stayed at our island for a year when he sailed to East Blue 8 years ago, and Luffy befriended him. He even saved Luffy’s life at one point.”

Another important story to learn from his son. He remembered Red-Hair telling him that he _had_ _waged his arm on the new era_ after he returned from East blue. He was getting more and more curious about those brats.

“So they may seek him?”

“Yeah,” Ace began. “No,” he corrected himself and began shaking his head furiously. “Definitely not, especially now that he broke one promise.”

“Oh?”

Ace looked to be considering things deeply. “You see, Luffy and Shanks made a promise, to meet at the sea, when Luffy became a great pirate.” He really wanted to meet this brat now.

_Hmmm, not looking for the Red-Hair brat... It is either good or bad…_

“Ace, if you are saying that one of your siblings is smart, could they have gotten the wanted posters deliberately?” Marco asked, finally getting over his shock after hearing Red-Hair name.

“Huh,” came from Thatch, who turned to face Marco.

Ace, who seemed to be more and more like himself, finally understanding that he wasn’t doing this alone, answered, “You mean, to let me know that they are at the sea, that they need help.” He quieted for a while, considering this.

“Yeah, Marcy may use that, but it would mean that they are desperate.” Ace deflated again.

“No, it means that they are fighting and hoping,” Whitebeard said sharply. Ace quickly looked up at him, searching in his eyes for reassurance, and seemed to relax a bit.

“Marco, are there still some disruptions in the northeast island in our territory, near the marine base?”

The abrupt change of conversation was surprising and dizzying, and had his children eyeing him worriedly, even Ace.   

Nonetheless, Marco answered, “Yeah, those small time pirates, and sometimes marines, are still making troubles, nothing major, but I was still considering sending some of the fourteenth division to handle it, I was gonna…”

Whitebeard cut him off. “You and Ace go, and take some of the first division with you. Teach them what it means to mess with us, **_all of them._** ” Marco observed him and smiled. He seemed to finally understand. Well, he was his first mate, and knew him for the longest time.

“What pops? What about Ace’s siblings? Didn’t you hear anything we said...” Thatch looked quite distressed (his son could be so dense sometimes), while Ace was eyeing him in uncertainty.

Whitebeard chuckled and said, “If your siblings have gone through all the trouble of sending you a message, it’s only polite and right to answer it.” And then he added looking at Ace, “Your bounty need a little bit of increase, anyway.”

Ace’s eyes lit up, and his posture changed. “Thank you, pops.” He bowed deeply, with his signature smile gracing his face. “Thank you.”

_He would love to meet whoever was able to install manners into this cheeky brat._

“Come on, Marco! No time to waste!” and he sprinted out of the door.

Thatch looked at him and back at the door and back again, still a little bit disoriented. “Go,” he told him.

“Thanks pops!” he said and ran after Ace.

“Here goes my peaceful day,” his eldest son said dejectedly. Whitebeard knew him enough to know that he didn’t really mind.

“Let Jozu take care of your responsibilities while you are gone.”

Marco looked amused at hearing this, and said, “He won’t be happy.”

No, he wouldn’t. Marco’s responsibilities and his as the third division commander were quite a load.

“I will have Thatch, Izo and the others help him,” Whitebeard murmured. Marco nodded.

“Take a Den Den Mushi with you and keep me updated. And we will also inform Ace if we find anything else about those cheeky brats.”

“Keep a close eye on him, Marco,” Whitebeard said, giving his son a serious look.

“Of course, yoi,” Marco answered, understanding the gravity of this order.


	2. Frustrations and Secrets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note:
> 
>  
> 
> I wanted to thank he amazing Mercyless who gave me a great feedback while writing and made this chapter more presentable. Thank you sweethearts ^^ for encouraging me to write more and share with you.
> 
> Warnings:
> 
> English is my fourth language. Warning may change in the future.
> 
> PLEASE read anotes at the end.

t have been five days since they left the peaceful Moby Dick, and thank the sea gods, they were on their way back now. In two more days they would be back with their family again, Marco thought to himself, watching the smoke from their little 'adventure' still clear to the eye, even though they had been sailing for a few hours.

He never thought that he would ever say this, but he preferred doing a mountains of paperwork in the most stuffy room in the Moby Dick, than being here, handling _**Ace**_.

He sighed for the twentieth time in the last hour ( **Yes** , he was counting. It wasn't like he had anything better to do). Ace was sitting, lifeless, in the side of the ship, near where Marco was steering, not moving, not speaking, hardly answering when spoken to. He only seemed a bit alive when the Den Den Mushi rung, and that was only for the duration of hearing that there were still no news about his siblings.

Things weren't this bad in the beginning. At first, Ace seemed almost like himself. True, his smile was strained and his posture tense, but he was trying to act normal and hopeful. But with more calls and no more information forthcoming, he began to lose any pretense and began to be less and less positive and responsive, Marco sighed again (Twenty one).

Marco had to explain the situation to the others from his division, when Ace begin acting all _gloomy_ and not like himself. Marco grimaced at the memory. His brothers naturally tried to cheer him up, which had the opposite effect. Marco sighed again (Twenty two), now they were avoiding him like the plague (which explains why they were all alone in the deck of the small ship and he was stuck steering), not that he blamed them or anything. Ace's depressing mood would probably even dampen Thatch's mood, who was the golden standard of cheery idiot, Marco sighed again (Twenty three).

Marco even saw him eyeing the Striker several times. Ace had insisted on bringing it with them for "any emergency" (according to him). It made Marco's uneasiness intensify, and kept him from having almost any sleep. He sighed again (Twenty four).

The only time Ace actually seemed contented was when they got their first Den Den Mushi call from their father. Hearing that several of their allies had gone to Paradise especially to help look for his siblings made Ace speechless for a while. The number of times he said thank you when he remembered how to speak made their pops irritated, snapping at him: "You are one of my sons, and your siblings are family, well, unless they are bloody slavers or rapers," (which made Ace splutter in denial). Their father continued by saying that if Ace was this grateful, he could go to their allies personally and thank them, after they found the bloody brats (He needed to meet their other allies, anyway). That was the highlight of this whole voyage.

Well, there was another amusing call from Oars in the same day, who seemed rather **upset** that pops didn't agree to let him go looking for Ace's siblings. Apparently, Ace had told him about them when they met two months ago. Oars wanted to help and meet the brats, but pops said that his presence would attract too much unwanted attention, they already had many allies in Paradise as it is.

Their father was right, Marco mused to himself. The marines always kept close attention to their moves, not that they cared or that it affected them in anyway. Still, it was better if they didn't attract attention to how important the two brats were. Having too many Whitebeard allies looking for them specifically may attract the _bad_ kind of attention.

Well, the rest of their conversation was, of all things, about a hat, which weirdly enough made Ace laugh. And that was the last time he heard him do it.

When they got to the island three days ago, they began looking for information about the pirate's attacks from the inhabitants. They quickly realized that the attacks appeared to happen sparsely and randomly. They were afraid (especially Ace!) that they would have to wait for an attack or they would have to hunt them down themselves (Ace was all for this), but they didn't need to worry.

Two days later, the unlucky morons tried to take control of the island at dawn. They even brought allies with them: in total three small ships (everything was small compared to the Moby Dick) and hundreds of men. It took less than half an hour to take care of them, and he was being very generous in his estimation. It was all **done** by Ace.

He and the others just watched open-mouthed (not him) as Ace, well, no other word to describe it, went _batshit crazy_. If Marco was a betting man, he would bet that more than half of the surviving pirates had sworn off the pirate life. Marco didn't have the heart to stop him, and their father did ask them to teach them a lesson Whitebeard style.

Those morons shouldn't have been causing problems in their territories to begin with.

Of course, then the Marines had to become involved. Marco was able to convince Ace not to attack them when the morons decided to fire at them. Marco couldn't help but shake his head at the memory.

It was probably a new commander that wanted to impress his men and prove himself. No veteran marine would make the mistake of attacking them (Seriously, they had their father's jolly-roger flying atop of their small ship, it was hard to miss!) with only four marine battleships.

Well, let's say that the man could forget about any promotion any time soon. Probably gonna stuck in desk job for the rest of his _bright_ career, Marco mused in glee.

Ace actually seemed at ease for a while after that. Maybe it was due to the fact that he was able to **burn** his frustration out, or the fact that he was able to send a message to his siblings; this stunt would definitely get him an increase in his bounty. Ace even joked with his subordinates from the first division about the bounty increase. Their bets were going from 50-200 million Beli, last he heard.

They stayed another half day to help with the clean-up. Having destroyed flaming ships near the island port was _problematic_ , Marco snorted.

The inhabitants insisted in throwing them a party as show of gratitude, Marco had to use all his diplomacy skills and patience (normal folks can be as stubborn as pirates apparently!) to avoid staying for any party that will take hours and hours to prepare for. Finally, telling them bluntly (lying, when his patience run out), that they needed to leave immediately to take care of another disturbance.

Here they were, on their way back to the Moby Dick.

Ace was back to being lifeless again. He would take him being restless anytime instead of this.

Marco was reaching the end of his rope. He sighed in deep frustration (Twenty five).

Marco had already tried bribing him with food (not that Ace was eating much, he usually was able to convince him to eat something because of his narcolepsy meds). Marco also suggested sparring (that didn't merit even a shake of his head), taking him flying (got a raised eyebrow), tried telling him stories about pops' adventure when the crew was young (Ace was actually listening for a while, but...). He was considering calling Oars (he had made him laugh talking about a hat! of all things...), or maybe call Thatch or Haruta to ask advices on how to cheer him up (he would prefer not to, they would _never_ let him live it down). He had tried everything he could think of, Marco sighed (Twenty six).

Well, except the _obvious_ he admitted to himself, talking about the brats. _This could go badly,_ Marco pondered.

Nonetheless this couldn't continue any longer (if only for the sake of his sanity and sleep), and if it did go **badly** , in two days they would be back on the Moby Dick, and others could try to cheer him up (Thatch and Haruta) and keep close an eye on him. Marco would finally, _finally_ , get some very much _needed_ sleep, he will have Jozu continue taking care of his duties for a while longer. He sighed (Twenty seven).

Now or never.

"Yo Ace, why don't you tell me about your siblings, yoi?"

Ace tensed and uttered fiercely, "Why?" _Progress, maybe_.

Marco decided to go with honesty.

He shrugged, "No reason. They are your family and ours by extension, yoi. Got me a little curious, especially after what you told pops."

Apparently that was the right thing to say. Ace relaxed a little and seemed deep in thought. Marco sat in front of him, leaving the steering wheel, the course was set.

Ace sighed and said, "There are so many stories... don't know what to choose."

He had a reminiscing smile on his lips.

Marco, stayed quite, afraid to disturb his walk down the memory lane.

"Well, there was one time, Luffy was a little bit sick. I wanted to cheer him up, so I decided to take him to eat in restaurant instead of hunting."

Marco shook his head in amusement, and said, "Food is your answer to everything, yoi."

Ace shrugged. "Well, maybe not everything. Almost everything. _Hmmm,_ but this is Luffy, food is _always_ the only answer." He continued, "Luffy and I went to eat in town..." he stopped, seemed unsure how to continue.

Marco raised an eyebrow in wonder, he didn't know much about Ace's childhood, but from the little he knew, _child_ Ace eating in restaurant properly, with his little brother no less, was _hard_ to picture (Ace's eating habits as _adult_ left much to be desired).

"I mean to dine and dash," he amended.

Marco snorted at that. Ace gave him a look, telling him to keep quiet or he would stop.

"We were unlucky. The place had several guards eating there that we didn't notice. The dining bit went well. Now, when we got to the dashing part, the guards were able to follow us closely. One was able to catch Luffy, and unfortunately we didn't have our pipes with us."

"You used pipes to fight, yoi?" Marco couldn't help but ask, finding it hard to imagine Ace fighting with anything but his fire.

"Yeah, we were kids, using whatever we had. Pipes were easy to fight with and easy to find," Ace defended.

"Anyway, I knocked the guard and Luffy escaped. But with all the chaos, we got separated. I was able to slip away," he smiled as if remembering a funny tale, he didn't want to share.

"I went to look for Luffy, only to find that he was caught. Several guards, the restaurant owner, and a lot of curious people were surrounding him. Luffy was trying to fight one of the guards that had him by the cuff of his shirt, when he punched himself, and got knocked onto a wall. He lost consciousness immediately."

"Punched himself, yoi? "Marco asked, raising an eyebrow in disbelief. _Ace's brother was very unique, how could someone punch himself, no, knock himself out, by mistake_.

"Yeah, he punched himself," Ace assured, watching Marco worriedly. As if Marco was the one being strange, not Ace's brat of a brother. Was he missing something or had Ace lost it? Marco tensed, _how is he gonna explain this to his father?_

Ace eyes lit up in understanding after several seconds, and laughed full out. "Sorry, I forgot to tell you. It's just that Luffy is..." He continued laughing, his hands clutching his stomach, which made Marco tense even more.

Ace took long breath. He looked exactly like the carefree Ace that he knew, which made Marco want to sigh (Twenty eight, could he finally stop counting now?) in relief.

"Luffy ate the Gomu Gomu no Mi," he said, still breathing hard from laughing.

Rubber... _Oooh that explained it_ , punching himself indeed.

"I only met him after he had already eaten it. So I just can't imagine Luffy without it," Ace explained, still chuckling a little.

"Where in the hell did..." Marco stopped, wondering how old the brat was when he ate the Devil Fruit.

"Seven," Ace piped up.

"...seven years old child get a devil fruit in East Blue, of all places, yoi?"

Ace looked at him shrewdly. "Where do you think?"

… _Hmmm,_ _where indeed?_ Marco thought, could it be…

"Red-Hair," Marco said finally, shaking his head. _That utter moron let child eat a devil fruit._

"Got it in one go," Ace said, smiling.

This was an important information. Marco made a mental note to tell the others about it, when they called tomorrow for an update. Just so that they knew what to expect.

Marco had several questions running around his head, but he decided to hold them in for now. The night was long, and Ace wasn't gonna sleep. He knew because he himself wouldn't. Watching over Ace was tiring physically and mentally.

"Anyway," Ace said, trying to get back to the story, "Luffy still didn't have the best control over his ability then, didn't even know how to aim. It did make for entertaining spars."

Marco chuckled, he could imagine.

But wait... something wasn't making sense... how…?

"How did he knock himself out if he was made out of rubber? Shouldn't physical attacks not affect him?" He paused. "Well, except armament haki," Marco amended.

"You're right. Marcy and I did wonder about it for a little bit," Ace said thoughtfully.

"Luffy was sick then..." Ace trailed off not sure how to explain, and shrugged, "This is Luffy we are talking about. You learn to just go along with things, and not question things too much."

After a little bit he continued, "I was looking at the guards and all the people around, and trying to decided what to do; how to save Luffy," he explained. "We weren't in the best relationship with the city guards." Marco snorted at that. Ace continued avoiding his eyes. "Not only because of the dine and dash," but he didn't elaborate. There was a _very interesting_ story here.

"I didn't want them following us, or making trouble to the village and everyone. They shouldn't see my face.. " he trailed off.

"I was just about to head there to get Luffy and run, and to hell with the consequences," he stopped, looking at Marco, for the dramatic effect.

"When Marcy came strolling down the street with **a** _ **dress**_ on," he stressed the word **dress** so obviously, that Marco had to raise an eyebrow.

"I guess I have to explain," he sighed, shaking his head, still smiling.

"I didn't know Marcy well then. We still didn't get along at that time." Ace eyes were downcast.

"We kinda didn't get along well at first. She came to live with us in a difficult time. Luffy liked her instantly. I was kinda jealous I guess, and she reminded me of someone..." he trailed off again. It was clear he wasn't proud of himself for this.

"But even I knew she hated, **no** , _despised_ dresses," he continued. "I remember one time, not long after she came to live with us, gramps brought her some dresses. He was kind of happy about it too, until she blew up in his face. She knew several interesting curses that even I didn't hear before. And I spent a lot of time in and out of bars, meeting all kind of unsavory people."

It made Marco wonder about the kind of childhood they all had. He remembered Ace once saying something about bandits and social skills.

Now that Ace deemed that Marco understood the importance of the _dress_ , he continued, "So, seeing her strolling down the street with a dress, jewelry too, looking all _princessly_ ," Ace was gesturing with his hands all around trying to stress the point, "was a shock. I think I froze for a while. She stopped besides the guards and demanded loudly that they release her little brother. How _dare_ they hurt him. She was gonna tell her father, no, she demand to speak to their superior. The king would hear all about this at the dinner tonight." He had his hands on his waist, his nose high up, obviously trying to imitate Marcy's pose. Marco inwardly smirked, Ace looked ridiculous like this.

Ace coughed, a little bit embarrassed, and continued, "I wasn't the only one that was shocked. They were all like me, and I was sure that someone would hit her, and tell her _shut up you little brat_." Marco had to say that Marcy was one brave spitfire to try to pull something like that.

"It worked." Amusement was dancing in his eyes. "The people around began shaking their heads at the guards' behavior. How dare they attack and hurt a noble child. The guards looked around bewildered, turning from heroes to villains in less than minute, confused the shit out of them. They began to apologize and bow. I saw someone kiss her hand even." Ace snickered.

"They took them to a fancy inn nearby, holding Luffy _gently_." Ace looked murderous. "Someone ran to bring a doctor," he shook his head. "I was sure that this would blow up in our faces, that someone would question her, or that Luffy would wake up and do something stupid," which was a real possibility, if Luffy was anything resembling Thatch, Marco thought.

"Somehow everything worked out, I slipped in from a window that Marcy opened. I took Luffy and _food_ , apparently the restaurant owner felt quite bad that he brought a lot of food to ask for forgiveness for even _considering_ that such a **noble** child could commit a crime." He shook his head at the irony. Marco snorted with agreement.

"Marcy stayed to take care of the situation. I didn't want to leave her to handle everything alone, but she gave me that look. You know, the look you and Izo usually give Thatch when he asks or do something stupid."

"Which is all the time, yoi," Marco answered. They both chuckled.

Marco wondered how stupid the brothers were then for the young girl to master such look early on.

"She came back three hours later, wheezing, still wearing the dress, asking about Luffy between breaths." He gave a soft smile at the memory.

"Of course, Luffy was still sleeping, not knowing all the trouble he had caused."

They both chuckled, and then quieted down for a while, lost in their own thoughts. Ace in his memories, and Marco trying to put some order in his _fried_ brain; order into all the new information that he learned in such short time.

"Looking back, I guess this accident was the beginning of the turn in our relationship," Ace mused to himself softly. He looked at Marco, needing to explain.

"You know, I thought... If she was ready to wear a _dress_ for Luffy's sake, something that she hated with such passion, then she was okay. It sounds funny when I say it like that," he laughed.

Marco shook his head. "I understand what you mean, yoi. Yes, it does sounds funny." They smiled at each other.

Ace was truly relaxed now.

Marco pondered if he should break the magic, and ask the questions that he had been holding, or just let the nice atmosphere last. In the end, his curiosity won.

"You said that you met Luffy later? You aren't blood related, yoi?"

Ace shook his head. "None of us are, but that doesn't mean we aren't family. You should understand."

"Of course," after all the Whitebeards were a big happy, _crazy_ family, without care of blood, standing, gender, or race. They were all the children of Whitebeard, and they were quite **proud** of it.

"They seem a handful, yoi," he remarked.

Ace snorted, "You don't know half of it."

"You are all orphans that were able to find each other and make your own family, yoi." _Like them,_ Marco mused, lost in his own little world, not paying attention to the impact of his words on Ace.

"Ace…" Marco began, intending in asking another question, when he noticed how tense Ace had become.

_Shit, why? They were just chatting, relaxed… What had he missed? Was it something he had said? What did he say? What was it? Shit..._

.

...

Ace was pondering a lot of things. Yeah they were _orphans_. Maybe not Luffy and Marcy, but being an orphan was better than having a blood-family like that, maybe except shitty-grampas (a **big 'maybe'** ).

Talking about his family made him wonder about his new one. He trusted Marcy and Luffy completely, they were his world, his reason for living and trying. What about his new crew? They called each other brothers. A family.

Shouldn't he try to trust his new family more? Families were supposed to be all about trusting and helping each other, not that Ace was an expert in the subject.

Maybe he should tell Marco about… Ace grimaced.

He had already told pops. And pops didn't even bat an eyelid, calling him a child of the sea, _his_ child. That memory made him feel content, a feeling that he was missing since he saw those damn wanted posters.

Ace exhaled, trying to relax his shoulders, pondering about the problem at hand.

Marco was the one to really convince him to stay, to give the Whitebeard crew a chance.

If it wasn't for him…

He actually can't imagine future without being part of Whitebeard crew. He would always be grateful to him for not giving up on him.

He remembers their conversation clearly.

" _Why do you guys... call him_ _ **pops,**_ _anyway?" Ace couldn't help but ask._

_Marco, eyeing him, answered "Because he calls us his_ _**Sons."** _ _He paused, Ace looked up to him._

_Marco continued, "To the rest of the world we are just outcasts, yoi. It makes us happy." Marco smiled happily looking at his crew partying and said, "It just a_ _**word,** _ _but it make us happy."_

Marco was his friend, at least he thought of him like that, he was also the first mate of his crew. Shouldn't he be able to trust, _at least_ , him?

And... if he...

If he didn't accept him, then he could just leave. Striker was here, his hat was here, and he didn't need anything else. He could just leave, and go search for his siblings himself like he was contemplating. Maybe even sail with them in the future. It wasn't like he really wanted to become the pirate king.

Decision made.

Ace looked up, to see Marco eyeing him worriedly.

 _No going back_. He took another deep breath, reminded himself that this was Marco, who was trying for the last hour to cheer him up even suggested taking him flying (Ace would have jumped at the opportunity any other time), and that he was no coward. He _promised_ , **no regrets**.

He asked, his voice barely above a whisper, "Hey Marco, what would you do if the pirate king had a son?"

.

...

Marco raised an eyebrow. He was wondering if he should try calling Thatch after all (Yes, he was desperate), when Ace spoke. What the hell kind of question was that, coming out of the blue? He was gonna tell him just that, when Ace continued, eyes dropping to the floor, "And he was part of your crew? Of your family?"

_What?_

_why would he_ …

_Ohhhh, he couldn't mean..._

Marco mind went blank for several seconds, and then he …..

.

...

Ace head shot up.

Marco was laughing, Ace marveled. He didn't remember Marco ever laughing. He remembered him smiling, smirking, even chucking, but God to honest laughter!

 _NEVER_.

Well, if Marco hated him now (He didn't think so, he was still laughing), then at least he could say that he made Whitebeard first commander laugh uncontrollably.

 _He didn't break him, did he?_ Suddenly Ace began to panic.

.

...

Marco tried to stop himself from laughing when he saw Ace panicked face, but the look only spurred him on. He tried to gesture that he was okay (was he okay? He was so tired...), but he wasn't sure he was able to get the point across (or help his case about being a sane person).

It wasn't even funny, this was very serious business to Ace, but by the sea Gods... he couldn't stop laughing.

He blamed this at the fact that he was bone tired and so anxious. He hadn't slept for a while, and the wine that he had drank earlier to keep him alert (Not smart without eating, a voice, that sounded like Thatch, said in his mind) didn't help matters. And finally, the fact that he _finally_ had the last piece of information to understand the mystery that was Ace. This piece of information explained so much about Ace, his drive, his attacks on pops… It made everything Ace did and said need to be examined once again.

Ace was looking at him, guarded and worried now.

He wasn't expecting this reaction from him, he was expecting…

 _Rejection_.

This though sobered him up, faster than a sneak attack on their father back (that he didn't anticipate) could.

Well, Marco couldn't let this continue.

"Ace," he called, making sure that Ace was looking at him when he spoke, "Ace is Ace. He is my friend and brother."

Ace was looking at him in an astonishment, opening his mouth, probably to protest. But Marco continued, giving him no choice but to listen.

"Ace, I told you once that we are all hated by society, have pasts, burdens, things we don't want to remember, things that we are ashamed of." He needed Ace to understand, so he added, "Even me." Ace seemed ready to burst out with questions. Marco waited. He got hold of himself.

"But under pops' flag, we are all family." He got hold of Ace's eyes again, at this moment Ace's eyes seemed like dark bottomless abyss, Marco noted.

He stressed every syllable, " **I don't care**."

Ace's eyes were sparkling with tears, and he dropped his head down, his hands rubbing his face. Marco looked up at the sky, giving him the privacy to get his emotions under control, when a thought occurred to him.

"Ace, you told pops, right?"

"Yeah," came the hoarse answer.

"Good."

"You don't want to know what he said?" Ace asked gruffly, still unbelieving.

"I know what he said." Ace was gaping at him.

"He said the same thing I did," Marco continued. Jokingly, he added, "I know I look young, but I have known pops for a long time." Then he added quietly, "And you are still here."

Ace was back to pondering, but he seemed even more relaxed than before. His eyes were red, which emphasized the bags under them.

 _Good, at least he is relaxed_.

Marco himself had a lot to think about and examine. But he was so tired. The whole voyage, the pirates, the marines, and the whole conversation with Ace made him even more wary and exhausted.

When he had begun this conversation earlier, he had expected a lot of things, from Ace shutting down completely, to him going batshit crazy at him, but not this. Ace truly expected him to reject him, he shook his head at the thought.

If he thought that… then...

"Ace, what did you intend to do if I said I didn't like you now?" Marco refused to utter the words **hate** and **rejection**.

 _He_ _refused_.

Ace tensed dropping his head in shame, Marco eyes narrowed.

"Ace, you wouldn't, by any chance, be stupid enough to consider running away, right?"

Ace's shoulders bent, and his body shrunk into itself.

What kind of f*cked up world they were living in? That child (Ace was still one, especially in this moment) was afraid of rejection because of something his biological father, someone he never even met, did years ago. Marco wanted to rage, to destroy something. But he knew that Ace's fears were real. Even in their own crew, there were people that would judge him and shun him because of his biological father.

Well, Marco was gonna do something about it. He was gonna have a very long talk about this with their father when they got back. If they needed to let people go than they would, if they weren't able to see beyond their grudges, then they were **no brothers of his**.

But now, how to handle the situation at hand.

Marco sighed, the whole day was one long roller-coaster ride.

Marco thumped him in the head, making him look up. "You idiot, that's something I expect from Thatch, not you." Ace seemed to relax a bit, giving him a small apologetic smile.

_Good, now to other important matters..._

"Ace, if you ever tell anyone about the _laughing_ , yoi. I will make you do bathroom cleaning duty, _and_ help me with accounting for months and months."

Ace smirked, and responded immediately, "Don't worry, I couldn't even if I wanted to. I will have to tell them what I told you to make you laugh like a maniac."

Marco tensed, but Ace still seemed relaxed. He would let the _**maniac**_ bit slide today. _It was a long day,_ _after all_ _._

"Come, you need to sleep, yoi." Marco said while standing up and stretching his arms and legs to loosen his body after sitting for so long.

"Not tired," was Ace's automatic response, not moving a muscle.

"Well, **I** need to sleep. It was a long day," he gestured at Ace, "And you will keep me company, yoi".

Ace winced at that, he seemed to have noticed that Marco didn't sleep either.

"Sorry," he said softly.

Marco sighed, "Ace, you need to be at your best, if you want to help Luffy and Marcy, yoi."

"I will keep watch," Ace replied.

Ace still wasn't moving. Marco considered the effort he would need to use to drag him to the small sleeping quarters, with him fighting and dragging his feet all the way, and then waking Liam to keep watch and... He decided it just wasn't worth it.

He slumped next to Ace.

"Ace, I am counting on you to keep me warm, nights could become real cold here, yoi."

Ace blushed a beautiful red, and stuttered, "You are a phoenix. You should go insi…"

"We will sleep here," Marco cut him off in finality. Not that he really was gonna sleep. Someone needed to keep watch, and it wasn't gonna be Ace. Marco stopped himself from sighing.

 _Ace's e_ _ars were red too_ , Marco thought in amusement, while eyeing Ace from the side, now that he was sitting beside him.

He should remember to tease Ace more. Blushing suited him, and it made his freckles stand out.

Marco tried to get more comfortable, as anyone could get at the deck of a moving, small ship. Getting closer to Ace, he crossed his hands behind his head.

.

...

Ace felt bone tired. He admitted to himself that he didn't want to be alone. Marco being here was a big help in keeping the dark thoughts away. He got closer to Marco, to keep him warm like he asked. Ace blushed, and inwardly smiled. Their shoulders and sides were touching.

He felt like beaming. Marco knew about _that_ , and he was still beside him, he wasn't flinching away.

He wondered what Luffy and Marcy would say to that. Luffy would probably look at him weirdly, not understanding how someone couldn't like Ace. Marcy would probably raise an eyebrow at him, snort and shake her head, calling him an utter idiot.

His head felt like it weighed a ton, he let his head slump backwards against the ship. He was actually surprised that his narcolepsy hadn't kicked in before. He was so tense. His eyelids were heavy, why were they open again? ...yeah, he wanted to say something, something important to Marco, what…?

Ace mumbled, "'raco, t'nk yo."

Using Marco's shoulder as pillow, knowing that he was accepted and loved wholly. Ace finally drifted off to sleep, to the feeling of Marco's fingers running gently through his hair, missing Marco's answer by a bit.

"Don't mention it, kiddo."

.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Spoilers: XD  
> This Fic and my other three are posted under the name rose7anne101 in FanFiction.net.  
> If you want to see what happens next you can go there.  
> I am not sure when will I update here.  
> Feedback is really wanted and appreciated.


	3. The Two Brats

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note:
> 
> People are so damn nice, I had people that agreed to help and they are awesome.
> 
>  
> 
> The chapter was beta'd by Mercyless and Gerbilfrind who helped me a lot with grammar (AGHH) and gave me a great feedback while writing and made this chapter more presentable. XD all my love and respect (deep bow).
> 
> .
> 
>  
> 
> Warnings:
> 
> English is my fourth language. Warning may change in the future.
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you all for showing me how much you appreciate my writing and this Fic. It really warmed my heart and gave me inspiration to continue on writing. THANK YOU, seriously.
> 
>  
> 
> I have a lot of plot bunnies for this Fic, I am not sure which I will chose.

"Any news?"

"No, McGuy and Whitey Bay said there were no traces of them in any of the islands they visited. I think we are on the best trail to find the two brats but it's just a hunch, they should still be at the beginning of Paradise."

"Hmmmm."

"So what do you think about all of this?"

A.O, captain of the A.O Pirates and a Whitebeard ally, shrugged. "Pops requested our help in finding them."

"Yeah, you know that they apparently are Fire Fist's siblings," Dustin, his first mate, continued not bothered with his captain indifferent attitude because he was used to it.

"Thatch mentioned that one time, or maybe hundred times," A.O replied.

Dustin laughed. "He seemed quite excited that Fire First finally joined pops, took him 100 days, according to Thatch."

"Izo seemed to like him too," he added, after a long pause.

A.O sighed. Being in Paradise always grated on his nerves for some reason, and they been here for five days, with no idea of when they would be able to go back home, to the New World.

"I don't really care. Pops asked to find them, so we are gonna find them," A.O finally said.

"You're right. Pops doesn't usually ask things from us," Dustin agreed.

"Exactly!" A.O intoned.

Chao, a new recruit, came running and stopped abruptly in front of them. He froze, opening his mouth. Nothing came out.

A.O tried to gather his own fraying patience, plastering a smile on his face. "Chao-chan, what is it?"

No reaction whatsoever. Chao seemed dazed, looking into space.

His first mate coughed, trying to hide a snort.

Apparently, that was the nudge needed to wake up the scared pirate. "Ammm, captain Doma called. They found them," he said in low voice.

"They did! We can go home!" Dustin cheered immediately.

"No, no," Chao shrieked, shaking his head. "No, sorry," his voice trembled as he held his hands in front of him looking quite frightened.

"I meant they know where to find them."

"Where?" A.O asked sharply.

"The island south-west from here, according to what Gari said. We are the closest to it supposedly," he babbled.

A.O took a long breath. "Thank you, Chao-chan. Tell Gari-chan to bring his ass here with the Den Den Mushi."

Chao stayed frozen in his place.

"You can go," A.O repeated evenly.

It seemed that it was all the encouragement Chao needed. He stumbled, running out the same way he came from.

"Poor guy," Dustin snorted. "You know, A.O, smiling doesn't make you look less like a shark. It is the opposite."

A.O moaned. "I'm trying." Having new recruits was always tiresome. Maybe he shouldn't let Dustin recruit at all, he seemed to always pick the ones scared shitless of him.

Dustin laughed. "The _chan_ doesn't help either."

"Should I stop using chan?" A.O asked, in a serious tone. He only used it with people he liked and tried to show acceptances to, just like pops used 'cheeky brat.'

Dustin burst laughing at the misery of his captain. "No, no, heavens no," he said between breaths of laughter. "Do you want the poor guy to think he did something wrong?"

His captain seemed to become even more miserable. Finally taking pity on his captain, Dustin said, "Don't worry, it will take time for him to realize that our _feared_ captain is truly a gooey little fluffy puppy."

A.O growled at him, so Dustin amended his description, "A gooey puppy shark."

A.O shook his head. "Go look at which island is closer. And if we have an Eternal Pose to the islands in this area."

"Roger that captain," he saluted jokingly, and went to the navigation room.

Gari came a minute later. "What did you do to scare poor Chao out of his wits this time?" he asked accusingly.

"According to Dustin _-chan_ , I smiled and called him Chao- _chan_ ," the dejected captain answered.

Gari chuckled. "You were your charming self." Then he added, "Don't worry, he will get used to you."

"…." A.O looked at him unbelievingly, choosing his silence as an answer to this notion.

"Eventually," Gari added.

"That what Dustin _-chan_ said too," A.O intoned.

Gari snorted. "Anyway, I assume you want to speak with captain Doma, and see about what they found."

"Yeah, I sent Dustin-chan to the navigation room. Go there, change course according to what Doma-chan told you."

"Aye, aye, captain." Gari put the Den Den Mushi in his hand, and off he was to the navigation room.

.

Clank.

"A.O?"

"Hey Doma. Yeah, it's me."

"Thought you would call."

"So you missed them?"

"Something like that," the Den Den Mushi showed Doma grimacing.

"You don't sound so sure. I told them to change course to the island..."

Doma cut him off, "No, no, definitely them. The island residents identified them from their wanted posters, but…"

A.O waited.

"Well, you know this island is strange," Doma finally said.

A.O snorted. "Which island in these seas isn't," especially in the New World, compared to some of the New World the islands of Paradise were playtoys, like Paradise was training wheels for a ship before the New World.

"Yeah, but this island has those fanatics."

"You are on Goddess Island! Wait, are you still there?" came the exclamation from A.O.

That one island he never wanted to go back there to **ever**. The residents there were _unpleasant_ at best.

"Yeah, they are throwing a party in our honor."

"A party! Doma, are you alright? They didn't give you any weird food, did they? Maybe mushrooms? We will come to get you, shit…"

Doma cut his panic, laughing. "No, no, I am alright. Don't worry. It's just that the residents of this island changed. I am not sure if it's for the better or the worse, but it's definitely weird."

He continued, "I wanted to tell you some of the things we heard here." Doma stopped, seemingly looking for the right words.

He finally said, "Well… Apparently goddess Marcy and god Luffy fell out of the sky, _literally_ , to bless this island," Doma deadpanned.

It took several seconds for A.O exclamation to come this time, "What the...? Doma, you are not okay, don't worry! **Dustin** , dammit, where are you? We will come to get you Doma, don't worry..." A.O trailed off.

Half-way through A.O speech induced panic, Doma began laughing uncontrollably. The Den Den Mushi wasn't able to handle his face changing so fast. The Den Den Mushi looked like it was choking in its own spit.

"Shit, A.O, sorry. I wanted to see how that sounded..." he said, torn between laughter and a half-assed apology.

"What the hell?" A.O was not amused. He usually liked Doma's humor. They bantered a lot when they partied together in the Moby Dick, but he really wasn't in the mood.

Apparently his mood was reflected in the Den Den Mushi.

"Sorry, sorry… but seriously that's what the residents said when we showed them the wanted posters. They actually asked for some, no. They _begged_ us for some posters, so that they can frame them. No, A.O, I am not kidding. The Den Den Mushi doesn't look attractive with its mouth open."

"Explain please, because I am still not buying that you're not high **on** some mushrooms," A.O demanded.

"It's just as I told you. The two of them fell out of the sky on the statue of the goddess in the middle of ceremony, destroying it. God Luffy then ate all the food they prepared for the ceremonial feast. According to them, the food was supposed to feed all the residents twice over, almost two hundred people. And he was complaining that there wasn't enough meat," Doma answered, humor still filling his voice.

"You believe this?" A.O couldn't help but ask.

"I am just telling you what I heard. Now stop interrupting me," Doma answered, still amused.

"I am not sure that you are sane," A.O said, shaking his head.

"Well, that makes two of us, now shut up and listen."

"The residents weren't impressed with this and captured them," Doma continued. After a pause he added, "That of course before they knew that those were their beloved gods."

A.O snorted.

"They just decided to sacrifice them and ask forgiveness from the goddess, not knowing that they were their cherished gods in human flesh…"

A.O cut him off, "I get your point Doma, seriously stop!"

Doma whined, "But that is how the residents told the story, stop ruining my fun."

"I am not sure that I believe you," A.O grunted.

"What? About what the brats did according to the residents, or the fact that I am not high on some mushroom."

"Both," was the instant reply.

Doma laughed. "I am not sure if I would believe anything I said if I were in your shoes, but really! That's what they said, and I am actually shortening everything and making it clearer."

"Clearer? _**Huh.**_ Do continue please," A.O sighed in defeat.

Doma snickered. "So they were about to sacrifice them. But then a ship of pirates attacked the island, and the two destroyed the ship and saved them."

"Weren't they just shackled and about to be sacrificed?"

"Yes," came Doma's deadpan answer.

"…Never mind," A.O really didn't care, he just wanted him to finish already.

"I am telling you what they told me, A.O," came the amused answer.

"Yes. Continue please, telling me about the miracles that the goddess and god performed."

"That's the spirit, A.O," Doma answered cheerily. He reminded him of Thatch with this tone of voice.

"They beat up the whole crew. According to them, god Luffy inflated and protected them from the cannon balls."

"…"

"…"

"Yes?" A.O said when the silence continued.

"I thought for sure you would have a joke about this."

"I am waiting for the punch line," A.O deadpanned.

Doma laughed then his voice get serious, "No, truly. I swear to you on pops' life. I am telling you what they told us. Nothing more, nothing less."

Doma paused, then he corrected himself, mirth obvious in his voice, "Actually, scratch that, I am telling you _**way**_ less. Every time they say one of the god's name, they go on and on about how generous, courageous and beautiful they are. If we're lucky it only takes ten minutes."

" _ **Fine**_ , continue with the _tale_ that the residents told you."

"So the brat inflated, which explains why he needed to eat so much. The god needed his strength to perform such feast," Doma was choking in his own laughter, but he continued.

"The gods then ran from them. They were angry at them, of course. So the residents followed them to ask for forgiveness. Then an earthquake happened due to the anger of the gods. The whole mountain shook until gold came pouring out of the sides of it."

"Seriously?"

"Actually, we saw some of the gold. They were melting it to build statues to show their appreciation of the newfound gods."

"And you ask why I can't take you seriously."

"I can call Jack or Ishilly if you want then you can ask them… well maybe not Jack, he's wasted," Doma amended.

"Wasted?"

"Didn't I tell you? They are having a feast in our honor, basically, to try to convert us to their religion."

"I thought you were kidding."

"Nope. Anyway, the gods needed to leave to spread the word of their _fabulous_ religion."

"Which is?" A.O couldn't help but ask he had gotten a little bit curious.

Doma began listing in solemn voice, "You have to eat a lot of meat. Only sometimes you can share it. Never make others do something they don't want to. Don't eat tomatoes, it's better if you don't say the word at all. Pirates with red hair are nice. Do a nice thing every day. Slavers are evil and you should beat them up, also stuck-up nobles should be beaten up. Be nice to different species. Meat is the best, when someone is speaking to you you should listen carefully, or at least nod your head regularly."

Doma paused for second and continued with the same voice, "Don't be mean to fish people and mermaids, you can only be mean if they are mean to you first. Bandits are bad, but not all of them. Eat together. Don't eat dolphins. Dresses are evil, you should burn them. There was something about king of the pirates, freedom… _Hmmmm_ , they have a book, I think Ishilly took a copy if you are interested."

"You were actually able to listen to all of this in straight face?" A.O asked, baffled. _What the hell kind of religion is this,_ (he still wasn't sure if Doma wasn't playing some kind elaborated prank on him) _, there are so many contradictions and randomness. Dresses are evil, meat is the best, who even comes up with stuff like that!_.

"I think I was in daze when they actually gave us food and smiled at us."

Silence filled the air. A.O was trying to make sense of what he heard. _Was there any sense in trying to make sense of things that made no sense?_ His head was aching _._

"The ship that the residents gave them, had engraving of moon and sun in the sides. The ship is painted red and the sails blue, at their request. They left two days ago heading to the island south-west from your position, the residents gave them a Log pose to use," Doma said after a while.

"Do you believe all shit that you just said?" A.O snapped, his head was spinning.

"Nope," came the immediate answer. Doma laughed, in high spirit. "But according to Thatch, they are troublemakers, and they both have high bounties, well for the East blue anyway. The boy is 20 million Beli, and the girl is 15 million Beli."

He paused and added, "Don't know what happened here, but it doesn't matter. You can ask them when you find them."

"I guess." A.O sighed, admitting defeat to his aching head and reaching up with a hand to rub it.

"I will call the others to let them know so they can focus on finding the kidnapped mermaids, and we will head to the next island close to you just in case... after the party ends and the crew sober up," Doma added.

"You will call pops to tell him?" _Maybe he already had._

"Of course, you think I would miss the opportunity of telling Haruta and Thatch this story?"

"Yeah, that would be fun, wish I could be a fly on the wall when you tell them." Thinking about Thatch and Haruta's reactions made his spirits rise a little bit.

"What about other measures?" he demanded.

"The sea here is getting to you," Doma noted.

"Don't want to stay more than I need to."

"Agreed. Whitey Bay left some of her men to in Sabaody, just in case."

"Smart," A.O approved.

"Karma and Namur are on their way to Fishman Island. So if by any chance we missed them, they are there. And of course to be additional safety measure to stop anymore kidnapping from happening, or until they figure out how the kidnapping happened in the first place."

"Isn't their king a friend of pops? Shouldn't he tell the king about the brats?" asked A.O, still rubbing his aching head.

"Yeah, but pops doesn't want to draw too much attention to the brats, and telling the king mean telling his advisors and the guards."

"I see, what about Jinbe?"

"Don't know. Pops may have already told him, or maybe not. Jinbe does have a lot on his mind with the kidnapped mermaids," Doma answered.

"He still in the New world?"

"He was last time I checked."

"I still can't understand what he is doing there looking for them?"

"Apparently those kidnappers were smart and tricked the residents into thinking that they fled to the New World." A.O could hear the shrug in Doma's voice.

A.O sighed. The whole situation was a big huge mess.

"I already told Dustin-chan to change course, so hopefully we will find them soon, and if we found those kidnapped mermaids soon as well. Maybe we will be in our way back to the New World by the end of this week."

" _ **Amen**_ to that." Doma laughed. "Staying here is affecting me too apparently."

"Take care of yourself, I don't want to hear that you became some kind of fanatic preacher."

Doma laughed at the image. "Keep us updated."

Clank.

.

A.O slumped on the side of the ship, he put the Den Den Mushi in his pocket and pulled out the wrinkled wanted posters, trying (and failing) not to think too much about the bizarre conversation that he just had about the 'stars' of those wanted posters.

A boy with a big smile and scar with two stitches underneath his left eye, looked right back at him. He had black hair with straw hat in his head, under the picture was written Monkey D. Luffy, wanted dead or alive, 20 million Beli. _He looked young, according to Thatch he was fifteen_.

The other wanted poster had a girl with dark red hair tied in ponytail with a purple bandana, green eyes, and a look of utter disdain in her face. Marcy, wanted dead or alive 15 million Beli. _She was sixteen_.

He groaned and shook his aching head.

_It was just two little brats, how hard could it be._

.

.

.

…

_Achoooo,_ Marcy sneezed at the man standing beside her, he scowled at her, she apologized and then scowled right back at his turned back.

She hoped she wasn't getting sick.

"Because that exactly what I need right now, _"_ she muttered under her breath. _Getting sick on top of everything_. It was more than enough that her back was still hurting her, she needed to find a doctor in this island to look at the new burns. Marcy grimaced at the thought of trying to track down a good doctor.

But now to more important matters, "do you have any newspapers sir?" _It never hurt to be a little polite_.

"No, little miss. You can ask the bar on the other side, they usually have them."

She tried not to scowl at him, _little,_ being 165 cm in height didn't mean she was short, and anyway being short doesn't mean they have the right to call her _little_. She thanked him with a forced smile.

She was being snappy and rude, letting everything get to her, she should get hold of herself. **God** , she groaned. _She was so tired, she couldn't remember the last time she had time to relax, to breathe_.

She was a pirate now.

A pirate.

_A wanted pirate_ , and not to forget that shitty Gramps, _Garp_ , was still looking for them. _This whole mess was his fault!_ She wanted to rage at him and curse him to the hell and back.

Marcy took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down, trying to use the meditation technique that Makino taught her. It wasn't Garp fault, not completely, but he definitely played a big role.

Another deep breath, inhale, wait and exhale, _repeat_.

_She exhaled and bitterly repeated her first thought, she was a pirate now._

Not that she hated pirates.

Her older brother was one. Her _adorable_ younger brother wanted to be their king. She intend to become one _in the far future_ , at least another year away. Now her plans were gone with the **wind**.

Inhale, wait and exhale, _repeat_.

She didn't have time to rage and curse.

She needed to find the damn newspaper, and see if Ace get their message, it was the only good thing that could come of getting _those_ blasted wanted posters.

Now wasn't the time for self-pity and doubts. She couldn't change what happened, only learn from it, she repeated this mantra to herself, for the thousandth time since the beginning of this _journey_. She had to be strong for herself and Luffy, she would have plenty of time to think and _ponder_ about all of this when they were safe, when they found _Ace_.

If Ace saw these wanted posters, as they hoped he would, he would probably go crazy with anger and worry, and do something stupid, she hoped his crew, the Spades, was able to handle him (if they agreed to join his crew, _the morons_ , than they should be responsible for handling their captain crazy behaviour. Really!). Hopefully, if the stupid _something_ he did was big enough (newsworthy), then they would finally find out where the heck he was.

What they were able to find so far from the newspapers and from asking around in bars (basically she was the one to ask because having Luffy saying " _isn't our big brother awesome_ ", wasn't the **smartest** move) about Fire Fist Ace (Cool name, Luffy had actual stars in his eyes when he heard it and was trying to find a _cool_ one for himself ever since then with _arguable_ success, e.g. Rubber Fist Luffy!, Rubber loopey like snake, Fire Monkey, Meaty God!) that he was most probably in the New World, where exactly? Nobody knew.

His news disappeared for a while now. Some rumors said that he challenged Whitebeard, the strongest man in the world, and was killed by him.

She wanted to say that no, Ace, wasn't that kind of stupid, let's say like Luffy, **who would go and pick a fight with the strongest man in the world** , but who was she kidding, Ace could be stupid and stubborn to a higher degree than Luffy, _way moreeeeee_.

God help Whitebeard, if he really did hurt (killed, she didn't like this word. AT ALL) Ace.

_Strongest man in the world her ass_ , if he really did hurt her brother, her family. She was gonna give him a *ucking big piece of her mind, and unleash Luffy at him. The hell with any consequences. (She kept that news to herself for now, no need to have Luffy riled up on revenge mission just yet).

Speaking of Luffy, she ought to hurry back to him. Who knew what kind of trouble he gotten into while she was here looking for a damn newspaper. Not even counting the fact, that she couldn't get newspaper the _normal_ way because of him. Marcy was pretty sure that they were the only people in the world to ever be banned by the News Coo seagulls.

Before leaving him **alone** to eat in the restaurant and making him promise several times to stay out of any trouble, she took the owner aside, a nice old lady, and she gave her a hefty sum of gold before questioning her about the island they were on.

No marines, pirates, slavers, merpeople, bandits, gangs, big animals, any volcanos or any risk of disaster in the history of this island. In the end the old woman was looking at her like she had three heads and long _pointy tail ( that she was using to try to strangle her!)_.

Not that any of it mattered, what mattered was that this place was as ordinary, peaceful and boring island as it got. Of course that doesn't stop Luffy from finding trouble (trouble followed him like he followed the smell of roasted meat miles away when he was hung.., no, always). He, of course, would called it an _adventure._ _He called everything an adventure these days, she had begun to hate that word and whenever Luffy uttered the word her body instinctively begin to tremble with dread_.

She opened the door of the bar and get in, and went straight to the counter.

"Excuse me sir, do you happen to have any newspaper?"

"I think Tom just took the last one, sorry miss."

"Ohhh," _Dammit, this the fourth place she asked, it was only a stupid newspaper_.

"Well, thank you," she turned to leave when the door suddenly opened, three old men coming in.

"Wait, miss!" The man behind the counter called.

"Tom, do you still have the newspaper?"

Marcy's ears perked hearing this, she plastered a _sweet, shy_ smile on her face.

"No, I gave it to Madlan, there was some new recipe there she wanted to try," answered Tom while stroking his moustache.

She somehow maintained the smile, while cursing inwardly, _Ohh,_ damn. Lady luck wasn't smiling on them either today, not that she was smiling to begin with. They wouldn't be here in this _adventure_ if she was. She actually missed Dadan and the bandits, she thought, mentally sulking.

_Was asking for small, tiny, favors (mercies!) too much?_

"I have one in my bag," said the one to his left, an older man with a scraggly brown beard and glasses.

"Dennis, the little miss here is asking for one, if you don't mind."

Marcy made herself ignore the anger caused by hearing _little miss,_ instead she embraced it and made herself look small and pathetic, clutching her hands in front of her, still smiling shyly.

"Of course," he said, and took it out of his bag, "Here you go, miss."

"Thank you sir." _Finally, hallelujah_.

"Would you like me to pay for it?" _be polite she reminded herself_.

"No, no. You're quite the polite one."

Y _es, I am trying_ thought Marcy cynically, maintaining the smile.

"Maybe the Sharmen children should learn from her," said the third man, who was now sitting by the counter nursing a drink.

"What did the troublemakers do now?" asked the barman in resigned voice.

"Actually, Just **now** we saw them fighting another guy," said Tom, shaking his head in disapproval.

"A child was fighting. Spunky kid was standing up to them," Dennis added, approval coloring his voice.

_Shit_.

"Excuse me," Marcy tried to keep her smile and the tone of her voice pleasant.

"The _spunky_ kid, he didn't happen to be wearing red shirt and a straw hat on his head?"

_Please, please say no_.

"Yeah, he was wearing a red shirt, but no straw hat," answered the third man.

Tom added, "Now, that I think about it, the youngest of the Sharmens had a straw hat in his hand, ….. hmmm, it had a red ribbon."

_Ahhhh_ , deep breath, inhale wait and exhale, _rep.._. _Forget it_ …

_Dammit_..

"Thank you for the newspaper, have a good day," she uttered hurriedly.

She clutched the newspaper and sprinted out of the bar running back to where she left Luffy, not hearing any of their wishes or goodbyes, hoping that this would not develop into large scale chaos _again_.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we finally meet Marcy. First impression anyone? What do you think of Marcy? Your thoughts about what's going on?
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> Please, pretty please with Pizza and chicken wings (Yummy, can't eat them cause I am sick :( ..) on top, review.
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> I need some cheering up ^^


	4. Luffy's adventure

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note:
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> The chapter was beta'd by Gerbilfrind who helped me a lot with grammar and gave me a great feedback while writing and made this chapter more presentable. XD all my love and respect (*deep bow*).
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> Warnings:
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> English is my fourth language. Warning may change in the future.  
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> Hope you enjoy,
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> See notes at the END, please.

He was gonna beat the shit out of them, dammit!

He had promised Marcy that he wouldn't make any trouble and he wouldn't use his devil fruit powers, and he didn't yet, _**but**_...

These assholes were asking for it.

The three jerks harassed the old nice lady that gave him a lot of meat, then they threw food, _MEAT_ , on the floor (Makino always said one should never waste food, like he would ever do that. It was **food**!). And they dared to steal _his MEAT_ and throw it away too. He should have beat them up then. But he promised Marcy, and promises were more important _than_ meat, and the floor didn't really matter anyway, it would still be yummy!

But then the tomato guy took his hat, his treasure, _Shanks's_ _treasure_ , and wasn't giving it back.

Marcy was gonna be angry that he broke his promise to her, he really didn't like breaking promises, _he hated it_. He already had to break one promise to one brother (even though Marcy told him several times that it doesn't count as breaking promise, she had a speech about it but Luffy only remembered the bit about "you don't have crew or flag so …Zzzzz before falling asleep) so he really, really, didn't want to break his promise to Marcy. But his hat, _his treasure, as well as_ his promise to Shanks, which one was more important?

They were all outside the restaurant now and people were stopping to look at them, but nobody was interfering. They were all purposely keeping their distance.

He took long deep breath (Like Marcy always did).

"Give it back, please." Luffy said again, trying very hard to bury the boiling anger inside of him and keep it from reaching his voice.

Tomato guy, the one that had _**his hat**_ on his head, snickered and nudged the potato guy beside him with his elbow, who was laughing out loud.

Luffy bit his lip hard and demanded in cold voice "Give it back."

"Where did the _please_ go shrimp? Didn't your parents teach you manners!" Potato guy screeched.

_Parents? What was that? Food? Teach? Did he mean gramps, Marcy and Ace?_

He didn't understand. They should just gave him back his hat.

Their voices were annoying, they were all _annoying_ and he was gonna beat the shit out of them, but first to get his hat back _unscratched_.

"Saru," the old lady that give him meat yelled running to them from the restaurant entrance where she was watching worriedly near the broken door. "Leave the boy alone, and give him back his hat."

The two ignored her and continued to snicker and nudge each other.

"I sent Jerry to call your father," she threatened, clutching her hands close to her heart, she was trembling but standing tall.

"You good for nothing old witch," a voice said irritably, it come from the tall guy with funny nose and grass hair, _that looked like ccmrewb quber hmm ...the green thing that wasn't meat_ , he was standing near the restaurant wall watching everything unfold in front of him with a nasty smile on his funny-face.

"I will remember this! Saru gave him back the stupid hat," he demanded in irritation.

"But .." Tomato guy said, looking even redder.

Funny-noise guy growled at him.

"Luffffyyyy," came a high shout from behind him. Marcy was running back in his direction and he still didn't have his hat back.

Marcy was barely able to stop herself from colliding in full force with him. She stood beside him, breathing hard.

"Are you okay?" she demanded in puffs, inspecting him all over.

"They are mean and took my **hat,** " he whined "but I didn't beat them up because I promised you and I didn't want you to be upset."

"Ohh Luffy," Marcy sighed looking relieved then she hugged him tight, saying "Thank you. You are a great brother," Luffy laughed at hearing this and hugged her right back.

_She seemed a little bit stiff, or maybe it was his imagination._

Marcy had been really upset the last few days but she tried to hide it from him and insisted that she was fine. He didn't know how to make it better, so hearing this made him feel warm inside.

Sniggers and screeches brought them back to reality. The assholes were still there with his hat. _He would ask Marcy's permission to break .._

Marcy tighten her hug around Luffy and whispered, "Please let me handle this."

Luffy nodded and let her go, _he didn't like it_ but if he got his hat back and didn't break his promise to Marcy then that would be enough.

Marcy turned and faced the three, she was smiling her fake smile (he saw it a lot these days), Ace called it the I-am-being-nice-so-you-better-be-nice-too smile.

"Sorry for any trouble my young brother made, would you please give him back the hat?" she said while bowing low for emphasis.

"No," the funny-nose guy answered in high spirits, he had a foul look in his face. Luffy resisted the urge to pull Marcy and put her behind him. _She would beat him up if he ever dared to try_.

The potato and tomato guys perked up at hearing this, and got back to nudging each other.

Marcy's smile disappeared.

_Good_ , Luffy didn't like when she forced herself to smile. You should smile when you are happy, cry when you are sad and upset, and eat when you are hun …no, eat all the time, preferably meat, he nodded to himself decisively.

Marcy asked "are you sure?" her voice was flat. It made people around go quiet. Luffy felt goosebumps run down his back, this tone of voice wasn't something to argue with. He knew that from hard earned experience, _his poor meat_.

"So you are also stupid and deaf and not just a short tomato." The guy snarked spitefully, getting closer to Marcy.

_Ohhh, he said the forbidden words, he was gonna be .._

"Luffy," Marcy said evenly, and turned around to face him.

_This was bad, really bad._

"Hold the newspaper." Her tone of voice didn't change. Luffy got a hold of the newspaper on reflex.

_Marcy face was as red as her hair, this was bad, really badddd._

Luffy looked around him in panic clutching the newspaper, and spotted meat-lady. She was standing beside him (HUH), she had left the _safety_ of the restaurant when she saw Marcy arrive.

"Hey, meat lady, where are the hills? We need to run. Now."

The old lady looked worriedly at him unsure of why Luffy would ask such question, "what? The hills .."

Shrieks of utter pain cut into her questions, they both looked at the source of the sudden noise.

Funny faced guy was floundering on the floor, clutching his jewels. Marcy was standing above him, hands clasped in front of her, scowling at him.

Meat-lady put her hands on her mouth, was she trying to hide an exclamation of shock!? or maybe stifle a laugh? She wasn't the only one, the crowd around them had similar faces full of shock and uncertainty.

"You little bitc…" Funny-faced tried to yell in anger, but his voice was croaky, and he didn't get to finish, before Marcy kicked him again. _She had seemed to be waiting for it._

Ace called her boots pointy red nasty monsters. Ace tried to explain many times to him that they were scary and that Luffy should really be careful. _Monsters_. Luffy thought that made them cool, he eyed them with worshipping eyes filled with appreciation. _Monsters_!

Luffy never understood why kicking someone in the family jewels was supposed to hurt. He tried it on himself several times with different instruments, like an old shirt, his sandals, a piece of wood, and even chunk of meat that was really yummy (cause Marcy said that it all depend on the angle of the attack, he wasn't sure what she meant though).

He tried and tried and it didn't _hurt at all._ He even tried it once on his sleeping gramps (Luffy was bored and gramps, the meanie, ate all the food that day, stingy!), it only made gramps sneeze and grumble about more rice crackers.

According to Ace it hurt aloooottttt. He thought at first, that they were lying to him but Marcy demonstrated using Ace as an example.

Ace had cried and cursed her. Luffy had never seen Ace so red before.

Ace said some really, really bad words. So bad that Makino said if Luffy ever repeated any of them (not that he remembered any), she would wash his mouth with soap, then he wouldn't be able to savor the taste of meat. He shuddered at the memory, Makino was really scary and mean when she wanted to be.

Ace has walked funny for a while and he wouldn't look at or speak with Marcy. Ace was really mean to Marcy. Marcy had apologized several times, and even brought a lot of food as an apology, Ace refused to eat it. It was soooooo tasty especially the huge chocolate cake she made.

Those were boring times, he wasn't able to go on adventures with both of them, and Ace, the meanie, didn't want to train with him ...but he did get to eat a lot of meat because they both shared _a lot_.

He couldn't remember now when Ace stopped being mean, and they made up…

" …. Sit down, or you gonna kiss your baby parts goodbye too," Marcy snapped and both the potato and the tomato's legs gave out and then they were on the floor open mouthed and shaking.

Marcy took the hat from the tomato guy head and inspected it.

"Luffy," Marcy called softly, not lifting her eyes of three on the floor (funny-faced was not moving, was he sleeping? that was gonna really bad for him, Ace said so). "Your hat is okay."

She threw the hat gently in his direction, he caught it and inspected it himself.

It still looked good, no new holes. Marcy had patched it up several times already and she told him that the hat still needed more work, so if he didn't watch out it would fall completely apart. He was really afraid that if he fought or tried pulling the hat, he would damage it more.

He sighed in relief. _That was good_ , he had been really scared. He promised Shanks he would take good care of it.

Marcy had her hands on her hips, clicking her shoes impatiently.

He forgot, _not good, not good at all_. He put the hat in his head, where it belonged, _**on his head**_.

Then he noticed the newspaper that he was still holding, the one Marcy asked him to keep for her in that voice. He folded it paying great attention and put it carefully underneath his precious hat.

"Meat lady, we need to **run** to the hills." He announced seriously, hands on his hips mirroring Marcy's pose behind him.

"What? Why? Your sister seems to have the situation under control."

"Noooo, we are running from my sister. Ace said that if Marcy's face ever became as red as her hair we should run for the hills." He paused thinking deeply, "There are hills here, right? Right?" _or else they would ..._

"Don't worry, there are!" the old lady said and laughed, "but how about we go inside and I prepare you some tasty meat before we go on our way."

"Meat," cheered Luffy, deciding that the hills could wait a little bit, _meat came first_.

"The red meatballs," he demanded.

"Of course."

They turned to the direction of the restaurant, when small boy running from a side road burst in and collided into Luffy who hardly felt it.

The small boy (who seemed strangely familiar to Luffy), who was now in the floor, apologized while panting. Luffy was helping him stand up, when the boy spotted the meat lady standing beside Luffy. The boy called out worriedly, "Grandma, are you okay?"

"I am fine, Jerry. Did you bring Mr. Sherman?" Meat lady asked while brushing the dirt from his pants.

"Yeah. I did. He is …" he trailed off, looking at the _puzzling_ scene in front of him.

"What is going on?" he asked in bewilderment, his exhaustion all forgotten.

A heavy man came running from the same side road, passing them to stop in front the three assholes on the floor, he was wheezing and puffing.

Marcy, who was speaking, paused and demanded, "Who are you?"

Calls of "father, help us", "please", "we will be good" "we promise", could be heard in the background.

Marcy glared at them and silence filled the air, again.

"Who are you?" repeated Marcy flatly.

"I am their father and I apologize for whatever my sons did." He said in between breaths. He was still wheezing.

"Listen _Sir_ , you need to teach your _sons_ some much needed manners."

Marcy begin listing "First they bully my cute baby brother and steal his hat, from a child younger than them, how shameful could someone be? Then they call me rude names... "

The man, was trying to speak but Marcy stopped and glared at him, "See that is what I am talking about, I am speaking and you are trying to interrupt, rude much."

The man opened his mouth and closed it several times, with no sound coming out.

Marcy continued unbothered, "calling me names, _hhhaa,_ I mean, this one.." She was pointing at the sleeping funny faced guy, "Looks like hairy cucumber with huge peak." _So that what he looked like… acu.. umb… a plumber, but that was not food. What was plumber again?_

"The other two," she pointed behind her at the two cowering on the floor, "with how their bodies look and their colors, they are definitely potato and tomato. I don't even need to explain who is which with how obvious it is."

She paused, looking the wheezing man up and down, "and you, _sir_ , look like a purple whale. Maybe a half whale, no, quarter whale, no, no. I get it. The whale flukes. Did I call you a whale flukes? No, because I have manners …. "

Luffy's stomach growled loudly causing the meat lady and the boy beside her to jump in surprise, they looked at him and then back at his sister several times, a look of astonishment bordering on incredulity was adorning their faces.

The boy finally whispered in great hesitation, "What is going on here?"

The meat lady gripped the boy hand and whispered back, "Later." She smiled at Luffy and said, "come on, meat is coming."

Luffy cheered and followed them back to the restaurant, the place was still the mess they left it in. Luffy got angry seeing the mess again, looking out of the window at the ones responsible. Marcy was still going strong in her speech. The whale man looked like he was getting smaller by the minute, and more people were staring open mouthed at them, or were they listening in amazement to his sister speak?

Whenever Marcy was in her lecture mode (Ace said it mean she was trying to explain to idiots how the world worked. But that didn't make sense to him. Marcy was in lecture mode a lot when dealing with Ace and him, did it mean that they were idiots?), people became _dump food dumbfofo.. Hmm.. D d dumbfounded_ , meaning after hearing Marcy speak they became so dumb that they agree to anything she said.

Luffy started cleaning up. He was holding a three-legged chair and not sure what to do with it when the meat lady came back with tray of meat. It smelled so good that drool was falling out of his mouth within second.

"Meat," he cheered, meat lady put it on a close by table, and Luffy started eating without even sitting.

"There are a lot of where this come from so sit and eat slowly," she told him.

" hdsjrt, ahhatn y , thdg o gjudooceee!" (Luffy's language translator: great, thank you, this is so delicious!) Luffy said, not stopping in his chewing.

The old lady stayed there, was she _waiting for him?_

Luffy finished eating the meat in the last plate and slumped into the chair behind him and began patting his still empty stomach.

"Will it take long?" she asked.

"HUH."

"Your sister!"

"Ohh, Marcy! Yeah. When she is in her lecture mode, it can take hours."

"Hours?" The meat lady echoed.

Luffy was picking his nose, "yeah, Ace taught me how to handle it."

"Ace?"

"Yeah, my big brother, he is awesome and stronger than me, he became a …." Luffy put a hand forcefully in his mouth to stop the words...

_Oops .._

"Ehiiii, I wasn't supposed to tell you, so forget it," he demanded his hand still in his mouth. Marcy told him several times not to speak about Ace in front of strangers, but the meat lady gave him meat, so she was nice …

"Don't worry, your secret is safe with me," she said while doing some weird gesture using her hand and mouth. _Was she hungry too? Should he had given her some of his meat?_

"Taught you what?"

_HUH,_ Luffy took his hand out, and scratched his head, _what were they talking about.._

"eeeh, ahh, Marcy!" _What was it that Ace told him… hmmmm… was it to scream who did you call tomato? …. No, that was for dis..distra.. distra- action. Oh, right._

"You shouldn't fall asleep, and if you do your eyes should stay open, and .."

Luffy was still trying to remember everything Ace repeated to him million times over, "Yeah, you should nod a lot, and say sorry a lot."

There was something else that was really important, _like really important_.

"Say that you will never do it again." **Yeah, that was it**.

"Do what?"

Luffy was picking his nose again.

"Don't know, you should just say it."

Now that he thought about it, _the last lecture he get was when they were in Nami's island … hmmmm, definitely there, nothing since then, strange._

The boy opened the kitchen door and come with a big platter of meat, he was having hard time carrying it.

_Oops_ , Luffy almost stretched his hand. He promised, but he was hungry, it smelled so good, meatball…hmmm.. The smell…

The smell was heavenly but he waited as patiently as he could. The wait for the old lady to help the boy and for them to bring the meat in front of him felt like _forever and ever_. Luffy dove in right away.

The boy was eyeing him in awe and wasn't chatting like before. Luffy shrugged and continued eating the tasty food.

The old lady came back and gone several times with more trays of plates full with colorful food each time. She eyed the stack of empty plates surrounding Luffy that were getting larger with every minute with speculative eye, like she was calculating the time and effort needed to move them and clean them and found it was too much endeavour at the moment, instead she took the small boy to the side, they had a hushed discussion, afterward the boy got out of the small restaurant running.

The food kept coming and Luffy kept eating.

After a long while the door opened and Marcy came in skipping, her hair swaying from side to side while whistling happily to an off-tone song, looking all relaxed and more importantly not red faced.

"Mixiii, y raccc, ynkkdsadisnnjj ky moooo?" (Luffy's language translator: Marcy, you're back is everything okay now? ), _meaning relax. no need to run to the hills._

"Don't worry, everything is okay. The man owns several shops, he is going to give us food and equipment for free as an apology," she sat in front of him, looking pleased with herself.

"Whale-man?" asked Luffy after swallowing the chunk of meat in his mouth.

"Yes. Luffy it's rude to call him that. He is not quite big enough to be called whale. If you must, call him whale flukes."

Luffy nodded and declared "Okay! A flake!"

"No, you never list ..." Marcy trailed off watching him swallow three chunks of meat together, and shrugged her shoulders.

The old lady come back with more food, stopped by the door surprised at seeing Marcy inside the restaurant _so soon_ , "you are finished dear?"

Marcy stood up and bowed. "Sorry about the mess! We will pay for everything."

"Don't worry about it, the sum you gave me in the beginning is more than enough. Even though I understand now why you gave me such huge sum," she chuckled while putting more dishes that their main ingredient was meat (surprise, surprise) on the table in front of Luffy.

"How about something to drink, and some hot soup for you?" she added.

Marcy was quiet for a while, she had a weird look at her face. Luffy's eyes narrowed, then she smiled (a true smile! finally) and said, "thank you, that will be lovely."

Marcy sat back in her place in front of him.

"reo kryyy?"

She laughed, "Yes. I am okay Luffy, and eat without talking."

Luffy nodded and obeyed.

After several minutes of only the sound of Luffy's shewing, the old lady come back. "Here, this is corn soup with bread and cheese."

"Thank you."

Marcy took a sip of the soup and assured the waiting lady, "it is very tasty, thank you."

The old lady smiled, "eat up dear, you need to put some meat on your bones."

_Huh, Mercy needed to eat meat, right, right, meat was the best when you were feeling upset, she should have told him …_

"ghdf bbgf MFGD" (Luffy's language translator: Take some MEAT), Luffy was trying to give her a big chunk of meat.

"She didn't mean …" Marcy begin to explain.

"Never mind. Thank you, Luffy." She amended, seeing the determined look on Luffy's face and took the meat from his hand, and took a big bite straight away.

Luffy laughed his signature laugh, Marcy smiled genuinely back at him.

"You still have the newspaper?"

_Newspaper, huh_ , Luffy nodded, and took it out gently from its hidden place under his hat.

At that moment, the boy come back bursting the door open, he looked panicked, the old lady run out of the kitchen, looking around in panic, fearful of another unexpected trouble, spotting her grandson, "Jerry, what happ…"

"You need to go," he said gesturing wildly at Luffy and Marcy.

"What in the world .." began meat lady again.

"There are big men asking about you in the docks," Jerry said hurriedly.

"Shit," cursed Marcy stopping the spoon from reaching her mouth.

"Are they marines?" she asked in urgency, letting her spoon fell on the table with clatter.

_Huh, shit, Gramps found them again? Nooooo._ Luffy stopped chewing, his jaws froze, and he didn't dare to swallow.

"No, I don't think so, they weren't in uniform."

"Tropical shirt with bright colors?" she demanded.

The boy looked speechless for second, the denied it "what? No, they looked like pirates to me. They had guns and swords…" he trailed off.

Luffy resumed eating cheerfully, ignoring everything else, _if it wasn't gramps, then there was no need to worry_.

Jerry added to stress the point, "They had your pictures and were asking about you."

"Those damn blasted wanted posters," cursed Marcy getting tense.

"Did they say why they were looking for us?"

He began shaking his head, then stopped and said "I heard someone say, we need to find them fast and call pops."

"Pops?" Marcy repeated, she was frowning in deep thought "Dammit, who the hell is this pops?"

She added under her breath, her head touching the table "wasn't there enough people looking for us as it is."

She lifted her head swiftly and yelled in frustration, "Give me a break, we didn't even have time to restock yet and it was supposed to be free of charge, dammit. I intended to milk the flake for all he was worth."

Both the meat lady and Jerry were watching in unconcealed attentiveness the scene happening in front of them they were completely silent, as if they were afraid that if they breathed they would break the magic.

Marcy abruptly stood up breaking the spell.

"Luffy, we need to leave now," she demanded and begin moving with new determination.

She folded the **newspaper** and put it in her bag and closed it tightly.

"hkfdkdf djdjt dinskfiiit," (Luffy's language translator: didn't finish yet) he said still chewing the delicious food he had been given.

"NOW," she insisted, her hands coming to rest in her hips.

Luffy put everything on the table (literally) in his mouth and swallowed it in one go.

"I will send Jerry with what food we have in storage to the docks," the old lady suggested looking nonplussed at Luffy's food consuming abilities (maybe the repeated exposure made her immune), while her grandson was frozen with his mouth wide open, seemingly trying to mimic Luffy's eating techniques.

Marcy looked relieved, "Thank you, that will help a lot we could pay.."

"Don't worry about it." The meat lady cut her and added.

"I don't know what kind of trouble you are in, but be careful!"

The old lady gave Marcy a hug and patted Luffy in the head (or patted the small ball on the big ball 'body' like balloon more accurately).

She gave Luffy a huge pot of meatballs (Marcy could only shake her head in exasperation) while ushering them from the back of the restaurant.

"Meat Lady, you're awesome. I'll bring my crew here to eat when we set sail." Luffy stopped chewing for second, to shout his promise.

Marcy was dragging him behind her while he was waving his hands frantically in goodbyes. She was looking around her wildly and muttering.

"Shit, we need to hide for a while, no, maybe… take our ship and sail, no ..they are at the docks…. Maybe better to hide. Shit… Luffy, did you piss someone else that I don't know about?" Luffy was munching on his meatballs while still being dragged.

"Here? Nope, don't think so," he answered between bites.

"Doesn't matter either way, we will have to hide for now."

"To the hills?" asked Luffy, popping in his mouth the last piece of meat.

"Good idea, we can hide in the forest! Hurry up Luffy."

They begin to run in the market using side roads, to find themselves in front a big tall man with their posters in his hands looking right at them, he smiled, looking like a shark delighted that he found his _prey_.

"Hey, you are .."

Marcy instantly took the empty (shiny with Luffy's drool) pot that Luffy was still dragging behind him and planted it on the man smiling face. They continued running, leaving the pot-faced man cursing creatively behind them.

"Luffy, it is okay to break your promise now," Marcy yelled looking frantically behind her and in front of her.

"Ehhh, really? But we are still her.."

"This is an emergency, it is okay." She cut him off, running faster straight ahead, while he followed.

Another man emerged from their left and gripped Marcy's shoulder "Hey, I found th .. " he began to say.

Marcy bit him and kicked him.

"Which one?" Luffy yelled, people were following them, a lot of people. They could hear their footsteps and screams.

"HUH!"

"Which promise?" Luffy insisted.

"Both, all," Marcy yelled back.

Luffy laughed joyfully, _Shishishishi_...

He get hold of Marcy with his stretched arm stopping her advance, and looped it around her several time.

"Luffy, wait, what are you .. my bag .. wait, it is torn, we really need to buy a sewi…"

Luffy stretched his other hand to the edge of the tall building in front of them.

"Marcy, the hills are there," he declared with wide smile.

Marcy unable to move, looked helplessly at the far green hills, finally understanding Luffy's intention, she yelled loudly "WAIT, you are not thinking.. ….Ohh, God, please, not _again_ "

And they were flying.

" **MY Bagggggggggggggggggggggggg**." The scream could be heard all over the island and beyond.

.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here it is, trouble follow them wherever they go.. Your thoughts?
> 
> Does anyone have any speculation (now that we are in the fourth chapter) what happened to make them leave?
> 
> .
> 
> A lot of encouragement = reviews = faster chapter. Just saying ;)


	5. Jinbe's headache

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter was beta'd by Gerbilfrind who helped me a lot with grammar and paraphrasing. She as always gave me a great feedback while writing which help me tremendously.
> 
> All my love and respect (*deep bow*).
> 
> .
> 
> Warnings:
> 
> English is my fourth language. Warning may change in the future.  
> .  
> Hope you enjoy,
> 
> .
> 
> See notes at the END, please.
> 
> .

 

 

 

 

"You look troubled Jinbe, any news?"

Jinbe was troubled indeed and he felt like shit as well. His head was spinning and he really wasn't sure what to think or what should he do and what was the best course of action to choose?

"No, nothing new Aladine," and then after small pause Jinbe added, "I am just unsure about all of this."

"You aren't the only one," snorted Aladine and got back to steering, leaving Jinbe to his depressing thoughts.

If he was going to pinpoint when things began to become strange, or maybe stranger? (gone to shit really), he would have to say it was about three months ago.

Three months ago, on what looked like another normal and boring day they opened the newspaper. A small article almost at the end of the newspaper said that Garp the Marine Hero had caught Arlong and his crew and freed an enslaved village under his rule.

He had conflicting feeling about this, but that wasn't unusual, he always had conflicting feelings about Arlong.

At one point, back so far that he almost couldn't even remember, he had thought of Arlong as his friend. They had both grown up in the Fishmen District. Arlong grew up to become a pirate and Jinbe had chosen to become a guard.

They shared a history, he couldn't deny that, and more importantly they both admired the same man, Fisher Tiger. The one person that could make them get along, they even called themselves nakama for him.

Jinbe had shed his guard attire willingly and happily to follow a man like Tiger, a man that stood for those that couldn't stand for themselves, and for a while now he had been _standing_ in the seat as captain of the Sun pirates, trying to keep the promise that he gave Tiger in his deathbed.

Not day passed by that he didn't wonder what would Fisher Tiger think about what he was trying to achieve?

Would he approve of the way that Jinbe was trying to improve human/fishman relations, by joining the Shichibukai – the government that was responsible for his suffering and ultimately his demise as well as the suffering of countless of their people, or would he call him a 'government dog' like Arlong did when he freed him from Impel down.

No, Jinbe shook his head trying to get rid of the path his thoughts were taking.

Fisher Tiger wasn't this kind of person, even if he didn't agree with the route that Jinbe chose to sail he would still not hate him or insult him for it, he wasn't this kind of man.

Tiger saved Jinbe from himself, he had been very close to become something dark and merciless, letting his hatred blind him and consume him. He understood now about the dark demons that could seep into someone's heart. The demons which Tiger spoke about at his death bed, calling them the most terrifying of all.

Without Tiger's guidance Jinbe would have become something much worse than whatever Arlong could ever dream of becoming. For this, _but not only_ , Fisher Tiger had his utmost respect and gratitude.

Jinbe had his doubts about humans. He thought that queen Otohime's ideology of improving relationships between the two races was a mere fantasy, but the promise he gave Tiger guided him, and he tried, maybe not whole heartedly at the beginning, but he tried to keep sailing on this route. And then he had met Whitebeard and his crew and he wasn't sure about it being just _a mere_ fantasy anymore. He wished that Tiger was alive in that moment. _He wished Tiger was there to hear a human, so naturally, call Jinbe a_ _ **son**_ _._

Arlong, Jinbe grimaced at the mention of his name, disregarded Tiger's last wish of ending the cycle of hatred.

When he had Arlong released from Impel down after he accepted the offer of becoming a Shichibukai he had known that Arlong wouldn't be thankful, (that was understatement!).

Arlong had expressed his resentment towards him clearly and loudly calling him a 'government dog', implying that Jinbe was disrespecting Fisher Tiger's memory, and demanded to leave the Sun pirates and to go back to being captain of his own crew. Jinbe let him leave with whoever wanted to follow him, after beating the living shit out of him.

He wondered for long time if he maybe shouldn't have let him leave or maybe shouldn't have had him released to begin with. Aladdin, his trusted friend and first mate had assured Jinbe that if Arlong went too far, they would stop him themselves.

But what was too far? When Arlong and his crew took control of small island, was that too far? When they killed humans and enslaved them, was that too far?

He heard about those _conquests_ from second and third hands, but he chose to believe that it was an exaggeration, the marines would have done something if it was as bad as they said. Then the demise of queen Otohime happened, the one calling for better relationship between merpeople and humans had been shot by human no less, didn't help matters.

But in the end those were all excuses, he should have gone to East Blue the minute he heard what Arlong was intending to do.

He took the easy way out, the coward's way out, and for that he would be _ashamed_ of himself for the rest of his life.

Jinbe took a deep breath and released it slowly. He saw Aladine covertly eyeing his sullen figure worriedly and tried to relax his body, taking another breath.

Hatchan, the only one to get away from the capture of Arlong's crew arrived at Fishman Island two months later telling a different story, the defeat of Arlong and his crew was not orchestrated by the marines, but by small boy with straw hat on his head called Luffy and his older sister, the one who's pointy shoes you should stay out of reach of.

This explained much yet brought even more questions.

He had wondered when he read the article for the first time, why had the marines decided now, of all times, to arrest Arlong (he had his answer now), and why wasn't the capture made a big deal of, if not the front page, maybe second or third page or even tenth? He had several clues now that could explain some of the uncanny mannerisms of the _marines_ while handling this capture and now he wondered what was the Hero of the Marines, Garp the Fist doing in the weakest of all seas? What was his relationship to those brother and sister? Who were they? Did they hate fishmen? Were they marines or pirates? What crew did they belong too? What was their motivation?

Too many questions were running in his head, but now he at least knew their faces, he touched the right pocket of his coat were their wanted posters were concealed.

And then came their current situation, more than two weeks ago, he doesn't know how, _nobody did_...

Jinbe gritted his teeth.

Some pirates (no, slavers, kidnappers, the scum of earth and seas .. ) were able to abduct several mermaids and some of the taken were nothing but small children.

Jinbe tried to control the anger boiling inside him, he felt like a volcano ready to erupt any second, _deep breaths_.

Kidnapping was a very rare occurrence those days, since the Fishman Island had fallen under the protection of Whitebeard.

But what more surprising and suspicious was that those pirates fled to the New World and not to Paradise, to Sabaody Archipelago, where slavers did their business under the protection of the _government that 'outlawed' slaves_.

Jinbe clutched the rail hard enough that he heard the wood cracking and forced himself to let go immediately by taking a long breath. He couldn't let his anger cloud his thinking, _he was the captain of the Sun pirates_. He then forced into his lungs another deep breath.

A warning light should have blazed red in his head when he heard that they fled to the New World but prince Fukaboshi, the guards and everyone they spoke with on the Den Den Mushi said the same thing; the ship fled to the New World.

He had naively discouraged the prince from calling Whitebeard.

The Sun pirates were sailing in the New world, close to the red line, and they would be able to find the kidnappers faster, and found them they did, after a little more than week.

To find out, after _gentle_ persuasion that the _goods_ (he had raged in disgust hearing that word) weren't with them, but with the other ship that fled to Paradise.

There were two identical ships, one sailed to Paradise with his people and this one was a bait, a distraction, and they fell for it like morons (hook, line and sinker). This made Jinbe sure that someone in the inside helped them in the kidnapping, a fishman, or maybe more than one. That one mystery, he would have to tread very carefully in solving. When he get his hands on the ones responsible … the sound of wood cracking brought him back to reality and he sighed before letting go from the rail _again_.

He had sent word to the Fishman Island with the new information immediately, and they sent people to Sabaody, to find _nothing_ there.

There was no trace or mention of mermaids being in any of the slaver's auction houses or markets in the last month.

What he could find from the trash they captured was that the buyer was some noble that lived in Paradise, where exactly? They didn't know (their coaxing method was guaranteed to bring quite the accurate and detailed information).

He called Whitebeard _desperate_ for any kind of help and advice to find out, to his complete surprise, that some of pops' allies were already in Paradise and Sabaody. Pops was gracious enough not to reprimand him for not letting him know right away, and told him that he was sending Karma and Namur to the Fishman Island, and Jinbe should try to squeeze any information he could from the marines.

Pops was right, he did join the Shichibukai to have their help in keeping the Fishman Island safe.

He was very grateful for the help but it left a lot questions unanswered (that he didn't think to ask then but was now wondering), why were so many Whitebeard allies in Paradise? What was their purpose there? Pops had been very vague about this.

Jinbe didn't miss the fact that Karma and Namur were heading to the Fishman Island before Jinbe had called, they would even arrive at the island before them. Did pops knew about the kidnapping beforehand and didn't let them know?

No, that was impossible, Whitebeard wasn't that kind of person… but was it somehow related to the movement of his fleet? Will this explain the weird movement of the marines, and why Garp the Fist was in East Blue? Was _a war_ brewing? He trembled thinking about this possibility.

The marines hadn't summoned the Shichibukai for a while now.

Jinbe shook himself violently. He was letting his imagination run wild, those things were unrelated. He was sure there was a simple answer to Pops behavior and he just didn't want to worry Jinbe needlessly.

"Jinbe stop sulking and talk to me, what is on your mind?"Aladine demanded cutting the thread of his thoughts.

Jinbe turned to face his friend.

"We should have called Whitebeard right away when we heard about the kidnapping .. "

"Maybe we should have or maybe we shouldn't have but you hear me Jinbe, **we** didn't." Jinbe opened his mouth to protest but he closed it when he saw the hard look Aladine was giving him.

"Even if we called Whitebeard, it wouldn't had changed anything. We were the ones closer to those monsters, and we were able to follow them and catch them. The fact that those monsters aren't the right one's that kidnapped.." Aladine voice wavered, while his hands became white from clutching hard the ship steering wheel. Aladine let his fingers unwind and looked Jinbe straight in the eyes.

"Well, it isn't our fault. As much as I hate to say this, the information we were given was wrong and misleading. So even if we had called Whitebeard then we would still be in the same situation now."

Aladine added after a short pause, "We are very lucky that for whatever reason, Whitebeard has some of his allies in Paradise that are willing to help."

Jinbe wasn't convinced, "They kidnapped children, Aladine. Ichika and Nika are barely seven, and Keimi is only seventeen, we should be able to do more."

"I know, but you can't blame yourself, the kidnappers are to blame."

The sound of crash interrupted their discussion.

"What is going on now?" muttered Aladine warily eyeing the entrance to the lower deck.

They had to break up several scuffles between the crew members the past few days. The current situation made everyone tense and tempers were easily lost.

Jinbe began heading inside to see what was happening with his crew and trying to master the patience to handle another needless brawl calmly when Kasugai, came running with the whole crew hot on his heels.

They were all screaming and fighting over something.

Jinbe narrowed his eyes, trying to see what made his crew behave so erratically this time.

Behind him Aladine snapped "what the hell is going on?"

Silence filled the deck and all of them froze in their place and turned to face the two of them, then it began anew, everyone speaking over each other gesturing and waving wildly in their hands.

_Children behaved better_ , he thought and his head began to throb again with a vengeance.

"Silence," Jinbe demanded and everyone obeyed, "only Kasugai."

No one spoke, not even Kasugai.

Jinbe was about to demand again for one, and _only one person_ , to explain.

"They found them," Kasugai blurt out, and chaos descended again.

"They are in Sabaody now….."

"They will arrive home in …"

"They are all safe and …"

"They met .."

"Hatchan said …"

"They were saved …"

Finally seeing that what they were all fighting over was a Den Den Mushi he decided that it was easier to just find out for himself.

"The Den Den Mushi, please," he asked quietly.

Those were the magic words apparently as everyone went deadly quiet.

Kasugai offered it to him like he was offering a precious and delicate gem.

Jinbe still eyeing them with uncertainty, took it and said, "Yes?"

A familiar voice answered "Brother Jinbe, is that you?"

"Yes. Hatchan?"

"Yeah, it's me brother Jinbe," Hatchan seemed relieved to hear his voice.

"What is going on? You found who?" Jinbe was trying to keep the lid on the bubbling hope inside of him from bursting.

Hatchan sighed, "As I was trying to say before they all went crazy, we found all the mermaids, they are all safe and sound. Luca needed some medical attention, but she is fine and only need food and rest. And in two and three days, we will all be back to Fishman Island."

Cheers erupted after he finished, Jinbe's whole body sagged with relief, and he found himself at loss for words.

"How did you find them? I thought they weren't in Sabaody?" Aladine asked, leaving the steering wheel and coming to stand beside him, looking as relieved as Jinbe.

"We didn't," answered Hatchan. "They found us actually, you see ..."

Questions erupted from his crew cutting Hatchan explanation, Jinbe glared them to silence.

"…. Saved them, and then they swam only at night following the dolphin's directions. Whitey Bay, a Whitebeard ally spotted them and told us. So we are hiding here until they finish coating the ship, so we can go back."

Jinbe, maintaining his glare asked, "Who saved them?"

"ohh, the …"

"Hatchan, there you are .." yelled a young voice. _Very young_.

"We were looking for you," the same young voice continued.

"We were looking for you," echoed another young voice, very similar to the first.

"What are you doing?"

"What are you doing?" echoed the other voice.

"Ichika and Nika", murmured Aladine beside him, seemingly both amused and relieved.

_They had really found them,_ those words were sinking in, he could see it happen in his crew's face.

"Hey, Ichika and Nika, weren't you supposed to stay with Keimi," Hatchan said in a slight panic.

"Keimi is boring."

"Very boring," Agreed her sister.

"We shouldn't go out."

"We shouldn't stay away."

"We shouldn't play."

"We shouldn't look for you."

"Boring," they both said simultaneously in conclusion.

"I see," said Hatchan. He seemed at loss in how to handle the two terrors, at least there were only two and not the full quintuplets. _Small (or maybe in this case big, huge) mercy._

Jinbe took pity on him and said, "Hello Ichika and Nika, how are you?"

"We're good, we had an adventure," they answered at once.

"Who are you?"

"No it should be how are you?"

"No it's not."

Jinbe interrupted before it could develop into full blown fight, with "This is Jinbe speaking. I am fine, thank you. We were really worried about you two."

"Ohh, boss Jinbe."

"Boss Jinbe," cheered the other voice.

"I heard you were able to escape, you were very brave," he added.

"We are brave."

"The bravest in the sea."

"Big brother Luffy told us so."

"Luffy said to set sail you have to be brave."

"Be brave."

"Luffy?" Jinbe asked. _Could it be the same Luffy? No, no. What were the chances?_

The girls cheered.

"That what I was trying to say, apparently they were saved by Luffy and his sister …"

"Big sister Marcy," Ichika and Nika chorused, cutting Hatchan again.

"The same Luffy and Marcy that defeated Arlong?" Aladine asked, seemingly as lost as Jinbe was.

Hatchan began to answer, "Y .."

"Arlong was bad."

"He was really bad."

"He hurt Luffy's friend," they both echoed.

"Luffy's friend is nice."

"Very nice."

"She let him eat Tangerines"

"Eat Tangerines."

"Tangerines are yummy."

"You can eat them fresh, cock them, or make a juice."

"A really yummy juice."

"Boss Jinbe, did you ever eat Tangerines?" they chorused.

"No," Jinbe answered automatically, he lost them at the friend part, so did everybody else around him.

"Ohhh," came their disappointed reply.

"We want to eat Tangerines," they both demanded.

"I will see what we can find, we will ask around." Jinbe promised, _it shouldn't be hard to find Tangerines, right?_

They cheered at hearing his assurance.

A crash could be heard with screams in the background.

They all tensed, Jinbe said dangerously "Hatchan, you better keep …"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhh," yell cut his warning.

" **Hatchan** , I lost them …" someone wept loudly, "what should I do?"

"Keimi, calm down …"

"You don't understand, they could have been kidnapped again, it's all my fault, I am so sorryyyy," the voice continued to wail hysterically.

The Den Den Mushi had tears in its eyes and snot was running down its face _. It wasn't pretty sight._

"We are here big sister Keimi," two timid voices announced.

"We are sorry."

"Ichika and Nika, you are safe", the relief could be heard loud and clear in Keimi's voice, yet the rolling tears weren't stopping, and they seemed to triple in their quantity, coming faster and stronger.

Jinbe sighed, knowing that he would not be getting any answers until they all calmed down, feeling sorry for Hatchan stuck there with a crying teenager.

It took a while for the tears to stop rolling and the snot to stop flowing.

"Hatchan?" asked Jinbe unsure.

"Oh, ehi, brother Jinbe," Hatchan answered hesitantly and paused.

"Yeah, they were the same Luffy and Marcy that defeated Arlong, we showed them the wanted posters and they …"

"Their wanted posters are soooo awesome," two happy voices announced at once, tears forgotten.

"We want our own wanted posters too," they demanded.

Jinbe looked even more lost, he gazed at his first mate for advice but Aladien only shrugged. _No help there_.

"Ehi, getting a wanted poster mean that you are a pirate, you will be hunted down by the strong marines, and if they catch you they will put you in a really scary prison."

"Nooooooooooo," they both yelled.

"Luffy said being a pirate mean freedom."

"It mean you go on an adventure."

"You have a lot of nakama."

"Have a lot of fun."

"Eat a mountain of meat."

"Meat."

"Is meat tasty?" Keimi asked joining the conversation, her voice was almost back to normal.

"It is. Luffy said it is," the girls answered instantly, little bit of anger coloring their voice.

To Jinbe it sounded like they were saying, "How dare you suggest it isn't tasty. If Luffy said it is tasty, then it is tasty, end of discussion (there shouldn't be a discussion to begin with!)." What kind of person was this Luffy, to be able to influence those headstrong little girls in such short time? Their parents were having trouble handling their small time fights and let's not talk about important issues.

"Right," Keimi answered in pitiful voice.

"Anyway," Ichika and Nika said and paused.

"Boss Jinbe is a pirate too and he is **awesome**."

The cheers that erupted this time were from his crew.

Jinbe looked at his first mate helplessly, asking silently for advice, Aladine only shrugged. _No help there, why did he appoint Aladine as his first mate again?_

"They have a point, you know," remarked Aladine, patting him on the shoulder.

"We will discuss this later when you are safe back home," was the only thing that Jinbe could think of to say to the two terrors.

"Oh right," they ignored him and demanded, "Hatchan, we want big brother Luffy's and big sister Marcy's posters."

"Ehhi, why?" Hatchan seemed unsure of why, like the rest of the Sun pirates.

"We want to show Sanka, Yonka and Yonka two," their tone of voice made no doubt what they thought of the question.

"I see," said Jinbe "you want to show your sisters your new friends."

They cheered in agreement, he was pretty sure he heard Keimi cheer too.

"We will frame them .." one of them revealed. It felt like she was revealing a hidden conspiracy.

"..and put them in our rooms!" and the other sister continued, her voice sounded dreamy. _She was seven for God sake, dreamy! What in the seven seas was going on?_

The two small sisters collapsed into fit of giggles, this time there was no doubt that Keimi joined them.

Aladine murmured beside him, "Give it up Jinbe, there is gonna be a small pirate crew by the time we get back, _a fan pirate crew at that_."

Jinbe sighed and shook his head, he tried to change the subject, "did your new friends tell you to where they were sailing? And what are they going to do?"

Silence welcomed him.

"Hmmm, they were looking for their big brother Ace … _Ouch._ " Keimi's answer was cut off with painful yelp.

_Ace_ , they meant Fire Fist Ace? The one he fought. The new son of pops, Jinbe didn't remember Ace mentioning he had siblings. _What were the chances?_

"Shhhhhh," two angry voices whispered.

"It is a _secret!_ " They echoed softly, their voices carrying clearly by the Den Den Mushi.

"Oh right, sorry, sorry," Keimi wailed, tears were rolling down slowly again. "Sorry," she whispered brokenly.

"Boss Jinbe and everyone, forget it." Two small angry voices demanded.

"Forget it," Keimi whimpered in agreement.

"We did," assured Jinbe and everyone around quickly echoed the agreement, scared to death of another avalanche of tears.

_Grown men, the greatest pirates of the Fishman Island defeated by the water-works_ , mused to himself Jinbe, _the irony_.

"How did they defeat the bad guys?" he asked instead, trying to distract them again.

"They beat the shit out of them," the two little girls said instantly and broke into fit of giggles.

Keimi began hesitantly, "Marcy said, if bad men tried to touch you or speak to you, you should shout rape really loud."

"Or kick them in the jewels," Ichika and Nika chorused.

"The jewels?" murmured some of his crew uncomprehending, _she didn't mean .._

"The family jewels," the two sisters echoed enthusiastically.

Aladine snorted, laughter spluttering as he dropped into the floor.

Jinbe was left speechless while most of his crew, the ones that understood, followed Aladine example (the others were looking at the laughing pirates uncomprehending, waiting for someone to explain the punch line ).

"You should use something pointy if you don't have legs," Keimi continued, seemingly unsure about the laughter she was hearing, but wanting to feel useful.

"Big sister Marcy has shoes," the two terrors added unbothered by the laug..…. _by anything really_.

"Shoessss."

"They are cool."

"Red."

"pointyyyyy," they announced cheerily together.

"I see," was all Jinbe could find in himself to say.

"Ahh, don't you want shoes too?" he asked trying to clear the fog filling his aching head.

"Silly Jinbe, mermaids don't have legs," they answered. _Jinbe could swear he heard the tisk, tisk, tisk sound underlying their words._

"Right," Jinbe answered, "Silly me," he muttered under his breath. Aladine's fit of laughter seemed to intensify at hearing that.

"Brother Den promised to make us spears with pointy ends," they shared with him, you could hear how proud they were of this accomplishment.

They deadpanned obviously imitating someone, probably _'Marcy'_ "Stick them with the pointy end," and they burst into more giggles.

He could hear the groans all around him, Aladine give up on trying to stand up and get comfortable on the floor still laughing "Oh boy, this gonna be fun."

"They could attack you with the pointy end," Jinbe couldn't help _pointing out_ to him, this fact still didn't help diminish his loud laughter.

"Do fishmen have family jewels?" asked Keimi, back to her cheery self.

"They do."

"Big sister Marcy said so."

Did he hear Hatchan whimper or was that his imagination.

After a long pause, wondering, if he should actually explain to the clueless girl (and still some of his own crew), what family jewels meant he spoke with great hesitation, refusing to make any eye contact whatsoever, and ignoring the snorting laughter behind him.

"Yes they do, but you have to be careful, you could hurt your friends and not the bad men."

Jinbe was trying to minimize the approaching disaster, five identical twins with pointy spears swimming around while fighting evil. He would bet his title, that they would have all the children of the island demanding spears in under a week, his head was gonna explode.

Maybe he should consider seriously in investing in genital protection gear for him and the crew (well, excluding Aladine) before returning home (or maybe they should not return for a while, he was sure he could find some urgent reason for long, _longgggg_ voyage with unknown return date).

"We promised," they defended full with passion. _They were seven for god sake!_

"We will attack bad guys only."

"I see," Jinbe said "good to hear." _This was a lost cause, he need to think_.

"Hatchan, call us **later** , for an update", he stressed the words, hoping to deliver the message, that he wanted to speak to Hatchan privately.

"Of course brother Jinbe."

They all said their goodbyes and Jinbe stressed the fact that they should keep their guard up, Sabaody was by no means a safe heaven, the opposite really.

Jinbe collapsed by Aladine side on the floor, his crew who now was in much better mood was going back to their duties.

"That was exhausting," he muttered.

"You mean utterly amusing," Aladine corrected.

Jinbe glared at him halfheartedly, not able to master more will power.

"They are safe," he repeated aloud the words echoing in his head. Still unbelieving, not half hour ago he was feeling as if his world was ending and now the strangling weight that he was dragging on his back had disappeared completely.

Aladine nodded and said what was on Jinbei's mind since he heard those _names_.

"Those two took care of another problem for us, _who the heck are they_?"

Exactly, Jinbe pondered, who are they? And why? They didn't seem to hate merpeople as he first thought (not that he would blame them if they did, Arlong did things to your perception).

His head felt like it just escaped from a full blown sea whirlpool.

He knew one thing for sure. He knew somebody who would have some of the answers.

"How far are we from the Moby Dick?"

Aladine finally stood up, seeming to follow the thread of Jinbe's thoughts.

"Two, maybe three days, could be less, it depends on the currents, should we change course?"

"Yes."

Maybe the uneasiness that he had been feeling for the last two months, would be soothed when he spoke with pops face to face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aren't Ichika and Nika the most adorable thing ever? So what you think? Poor Jinbe...
> 
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> 
> I am considering writing a scene with Luffy and Marcy, Ichika, Nika and the other three sisters? Your thoughts? I actually don't know where to begin to write such a conversation. But still it will be sooooo fun to read...
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> As always thank you for your encouragement and support!
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> Please leave a review and share the love ^^


	6. The Mysterious sea

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note:
> 
> .
> 
> The chapter was beta'd by the amazing Gerbilfrind who helped me a lot with grammar and paraphrasing. All my love and respect (*Ace's deep bow*).
> 
> .
> 
> .
> 
> Warnings:
> 
> English is my fourth language. Warning may change in the future.
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> Hope you enjoy,
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> see notes at the END, please.

 

 

 

 

 

"There are now eight different Whitebeard allies spotted in Paradise," a deep male voice announced.

"I get some reporters today that confirmed they were also spotted in Sabaody," a female soft voice confirmed.

"And the news about Fire Fist Ace, did he really join the Whitebeard pirates?" an authoritative cold voice colored with annoyance and impatience asked.

"Yes, it has been confirmed that he joined under the Whitebeard flag," the female voice answered calmly.

"His bounty?" demanded the cold voice.

"It will be increased accordingly," the deep male voice assured.

"We have some unrest in Fishman Island," the female voice declared.

"Fishman Island," the cold voice repeated and paused, "isn't it one of Whitebeard territories?"

"Yes," the female voice confirmed. "We weren't able to confirm the reason for the unrest, but some reports indicate the unrest is caused by the kidnapping of mermaids."

The deep male voice added, "I have reports that Jinbe, one of the seven Shichibukai, has asked for information about known slavers in Paradise, and demanded that the marines in Paradies keep watch on specific ships, I could go into more detail .."

"No need," cut the cold voice impatiently.

No one dared to speak.

"Did you find anything about any kidnappings," the cold voice demanded.

"No, sir. My sources weren't able to confirm that there was kidnapping of any kind nor any information on missing mermaids," the female voice answered.

"No, sir," the male voice declared.

After long pause, the cold voice asked calmly.

"Anything more to report?"

"Erm.. we lost visual of two of Whitebeard's ships," the female voice announced, a note of hesitation was barely visible in her voice.

"Oh?" the cold voice said.

"There was a surprise storm and we lost visuals, we were able to find one of the three ships. We are still looking for the others, it is not the first time something like this happened because the weather in the New World is very unpredictable," the female voice explained hurriedly.

"I see," the voice said blankly, the impatience disappeared, he asked coolly.

"Is it the flagship? The one Whitebeard himself stays on?"

"No," came the grudging answer.

"Anything else?" he added.

"Yes," the female voice reluctantly answered and then added after small pause.

"We lost track of Red-Hair. It isn't the first time this has happened either. The Red Force is very hard to track and they don't stay in any place for more than few days, even in their own territories... "

"Where did you lose him?" the cold voice asked evenly, cutting her babble.

"It was near the borders of Kaido's territory."

Only the sound of breathing could be heard.

"Is there any noteworthy information about the other Yonkos?"

"No," come the female's fast answer.

"No," echoed the male deep voice evenly.

Silence prevailed again.

"Find **them** and keep me updated."

Clank.

.

.

.

.

.

.

.

...

_The sea was a really mysterious place,_ marveled Shanks.

A week ago if someone told him that he would be sitting with another Yonko, Whitebeard himself, having a drink on the Moby Dick, and the drink would be provided by Whitebeard himself no less, (they had already finished the sake that he brought) he would have laughed himself into oblivion, after giving the poor sod something strong to drink because he _obviously_ needed it.

Nonetheless here he was in the Moby Dick having a drink with Whitebeard (the good kind too) and waiting.

_Ohhh_ , Shanks snorted inwardly, he still wanted to laugh himself into oblivion.

It was not like that this was the first time they had shared a drink and they did get along, well, as much as two former and current enemies, or two Yonkos could, mused Shanks to himself.

_The sea was mysterious thing indeed._

All of this, wondered Shanks amusedly, because of one little brat.

He hoped his little anchor was doing well and being here did decrease his worries a bit (more than a bit he grudgingly admitted to himself).

Shanks remembered when almost a week ago Lucky Roo burst into the party they were having in the honor of _hmmmm_ … he couldn't remember now what were they celebrating, probably some new recruits joining, or buying new sake or beating new drinking record or Yasopp shooting new record … anyway, it didn't really matter...

Lucky Roo burst with newspaper in his hand instead of his usual huge chunk of meat.

Seeing Luffy's wanted poster Shanks had felt different kind of happiness, like a father watching his son take his first step. When he scanned the poster, his first thought was that no one could mistake that big D smile. Even after eight years it stayed the same, and the precious straw hat was safe on his head, he had felt quite proud before reality settled in and he then started panicking.

He was actually ordering his crew to prepare the ship to set sail to East Blue to find what the hell in the freaking world happened!

Bad and worst case scenarios had been running in his head and all he could think of was what the heck has happened?

Luffy wasn't supposed to set sail until he was 17 according to what Ace told him when they met, Luffy had promised.

Luffy took his promises really seriously.

He knew that people changed, that worlds could change. He lived in the New World, for God sake. Here nothing, and he meant literally nothing, could be taken for granted, not the weather, the sea, the creatures, or the islands….

But he had no doubt that Luffy would not change, would never change, if he had any doubt Shanks wouldn't have entrusted him with his treasure, his hopes and his dreams.

So he knew that only a disaster could had occurred for him to leave with his sister (Marcy if he wasn't mistaken, he remembered Ace telling him about her and that she was supposed to set sail a year before Luffy, he had asked Benny to keep an eye on when her news began to arrive, she was a sister of two troublemakers, meaning she would definitely cause all kinds of newsworthy troubles).

They didn't set sail to East Blue of course. Benny come back to the panicked preparation, got the story from him (Shanks didn't know how, he was hysteric!) and the crew, and then calmly pointed out that Luffy wasn't in East Blue now, and if Luffy and his sister were in any kind trouble or danger, they were gonna try to contact their family, _Ace_.

Shanks become speechless. He knew that Ace was Luffy and Marcy's big brother, he had met the guy like eight or nine months ago. _How could he not think of that himself?_

He could only imagine how Ace was feeling. If he was hysteric with worry, how would Ace be handling this situation.

Well, Benny did what Benny did best, and talked some sense into him, Skanks didn't know what he would do without his adorable first mate.

They decided if anyone had the slightest idea about what was going on it would be Ace, and they knew where to find him.

To tell the truth, he was a little worried about Ace, when news of him disappeared after he had left to challenge Whitebeard (his attitude and determination did remind him of both Luffy and his old captain Roger), he was considering finding the old man Whitebeard soon anyway and having _pleasant_ chat with him over some good sake (demanding some answers from him about Ace's fate).

He knew Whitebeard would not kill the boy, he wasn't that kind of pirate but news on Ace had ceased to exist. So he had fretted and worried that maybe there was an accident, maybe the fight went too far and Ace...

How would Luffy handle hearing that his brother...… No, that didn't matter anymore because it didn't happen and nothing would happen to the beloved youngest son of Whitebeard he mused to himself.

The boy had joined the Whitebeard pirates after putting a quite an _impressive_ fight, Whitebeard seemed quite smug telling him _all_ about it.

_Hmmm_ , Shanks took a gulp of his sake, looking at the sky, ignoring the old man's stare and enjoying the cool sea air and his walk down the memory lane of the last week.

It took them four days to trace where the Moby Dick was sailing, another three days to be able to follow them, and find them without alerting the Marines (which was quite tricky! Lucky there was a storm and they had one of the best navigators on board who had maneuvered the Red Force skillfully though the weather and under the marines' radar).

The Marines, thought Shanks with a grin, were more than probably in full panic mode now, losing sight of him and Whitebeard in the same time.

_Hmmm,_ they were able to sneak under the marines' radar this time but they shouldn't push their luck, the marines weren't stupid despite how they behaved most of the time. They had no doubt dispatched many ships to look for them. He made Benny (who had given him the stink eye that promised that there would be _a heavy price_ to pay later) take the Red Force and conceal it far away, so if even in the case of the marines finding the Moby Dick they wouldn't know that Yonkos were having a meeting. _No need to take any risky chances._

_Hmmm.._.

While they were sailing at the speed of light (yes the Red Force was that fast. No, of course he was not exaggerating) to find the Moby Dick scenarios were running in his mind, he couldn't sleep a wink, and he couldn't enjoy drinking either. Shanks didn't know what Benny told the crew to explain his unusual behavior and why were they searching for the strongest man of the world, if not to pick a _fight_ with him (in those last few days, he noted that some of his crew members had become a firm believers in variety of gods), but nobody disturbed his gloomy self.

And here he was waiting with Whitebeard for Ace to return from his voyage (Whitebeard refused to explain where and what Ace was doing! giving Shanks a glare intensified with Haki for emphasis when he continued to ask), but according to the last transmission they should be here soon.

He wondered how Ace was doing? From what he gleaned from Whitebeard, Shanks did not think Ace was doing so good. Shanks could imagine that since _he_ took the news poorly to Ace it would have been his worst nightmare coming true. He wanted to make sure that the kid (Ace) was okay and console him a bit (when he told Benny that, he snorted and shook his head muttering about idiots needing consoling themselves and how they should mind their own damn business..) and not only because he was Luffy's big brother, which made him quite special. To be chosen by Luffy was an honor bestowed only in few. He had no doubt that Luffy pursued him and nagged at him until Ace give up and agreed to become his brother.

Ace was quite the impressive young man in Shanks' eyes, not because he was a new super rookie that was able to get famous quite quickly, and even had the world government after him trying to recruit him into becoming a Shichibukai, which he refused vehemently, or that he challenged Whitebeard (that one made him an idiot actually) and then impressed the old man enough to want him as his son and then have Whitebeard brag loudly about it.

That did make him impressive to anyone else but not in Shanks' eyes.

No, it was how seriously he took the mantle of brother, seeking him, a Yonko, just to bow to him in thanks for saving his younger brother years ago (a time that Ace had not even known of Luffy's existence). A young man whose eyes lit up and his face brightened when he told him about Luffy and Marcy, his little family. This was what made Ace have a special spot (small) for himself in Shanks heart.

He took another gulp of the sake eyeing Whitebeard, who was staring back at him, his eyes narrowed, thinking about the little information that the old man shared with him. Apparently some of the old man's allies were able to track down Luffy and his sister to an island they just departed from in Paradise, and that they were able to find the next island the siblings intended to sail to, which should make tracking them easier. Hopefully, they would be able to find them real soon.

When Shanks asked for more details, Whitebeard had a strange glint in his eyes and called two commanders to explain (he can't remember their names, it was the one with chef attire and brown pompadour hairstyle AKA the hairdo weirdo, and the other short one wearing strange green outfit with ruffled collar, AKA the tights weirdo), which lead to one the of most bizarre one sided conversation he ever heard (and he was known to have one sided conversation himself with rocks, _ahem Benny ahem_ ), between their fits of endless giggles he was able to glean somethings happened involving (maybe! If he understood right!) gods falling from the sky, a cannonball balloon resistance, followers of the meat God, volcanos of gold, the religion of meat eaters and a balloon like sculptor of some kind for protection (he had no idea what he just said), and somehow Luffy and his sister were involved.

How? He didn't know and he dare not ask.

Shanks had wasted more than hour trying to decipher what the hair weirdo and tights weirdo had meant and now he was questioning if it had been worth it (his only consolation that he now had good sake to help cure the epic headache).

Really! For the sake of his own sanity he did not want to know.

But what's important was that the two brats, as Whitebeard had dubbed them, Shanks snorted inwardly at the title, were alive and probably okay, and the Whitebeard allies were getting closer and closer to find them.

But what put Shanks in such good mood, was Whitebeard's unconcealed interest in the two brats, especially in Luffy.

Whitebeard bluntly asked him if Luffy was the one that he bet his arm on, and demanded explanation to why.

Shanks was surprised out of his wits, and all he could do was laugh hysterically. Even when he wasn't here Luffy was still able to be the center of attention and, well, _trouble_.

His laughter made both crews tense (This was before he ordered, _Ahem, convinced_ Benny to leave and conceal the Red Force). Especially when Whitebeard's aura intensified. Shanks told him, when he was finally able to control his laughter (it took a while), that yes, Luffy was the one that Shank bet his arm on, and that Luffy would most definitely bring a new era. He refused to add more on the subject.

Whitebeard had become agitated at getting only a monosyllabic replies from him while Shanks had a knowing smile on his face. Finally, Shanks added to pacify him (while cackling joyfully inside) that he didn't want Whitebeard opinion to be colored with other things, he should meet the _brat_ himself and form his own opinions (this olive branch was given only because the old man was sharing the good kind of sake with him).

But really, Shanks didn't want to ruin the surprise that was called Luffy.

Even though Luffy was a walking unpredictability, he didn't see the need of giving ( _really he was against giving any clue. It would simply ruin the fun_ ) the old man any help to prepare.

He wanted to be around when the two of them met for the first time.

It promised to be quite the entertaining show. Especially if the old man tried to recruit him, ohh, dammit! Why did he make the promise with Luffy again, he was gonna miss the most entertaining show in the seven seas. Maybe he could hide here until the allies brought them back to the Moby Dick, it would be only month or two.

It would be worth it and he could enjoy the old man sake. He would give it the old man, he had good taste when it came to sake.

A plan was forming in Shanks's head when a picture of his first mate appeared in his head and in swift wind destroyed the sand castles of his imagination. Benny would not be amused (he would probably drag him by the ear before even finishing the first sentence) but still… damn ... at least plant a recording Den Den Mushi, hmmm, maybe have several of them placed to watch the face-off...

Ohhh, maybe he should have a small talk about this issue with the hairdo weirdo and the tights weirdo, he had feeling they would _appreciate_ the ….

A clearing of throat cut through Shanks musings and plans.

A broad-chested, heavily-armored man was standing at the end of the stairs leading to where he and Whitebeard were sitting _enjoying_ their drinks and chat.

Whitebeard signaled for him to come closer.

The man eyed Shanks warily. Apparently Shanks left quite impression when he first stepped on the Moby Dick. He had to admit he might have gone a little bit more overboard than he intended to, but in his defense he was anxious and stuck with his gloomy thoughts for a while, and at the first option to let some steam off he _Hakied off (oops)_.

Shanks eyed him, trying to remember who he was, he was a commander for sure. He had a long face with black stripe-like patterns for his beard and his hairstyle.

'Diamond' Jozu, the 3rd division commander of the Whitebeard Pirates.

The stoic and solemn man ignored him and walked to where Whitebeard was sitting.

"Pops," he began tensely eyeing Shanks covertly.

A raised eyebrow from Whitebeard caused him to relax his shoulders and he continued calmly.

"A ship has been spotted sailing in our direction."

"The boys?"

"We can't see the Jolly Roger yet! The ship is still too far, and we also can't seem to connect them by the Den Den Mushi."

Whitebeard grunted in acknowledgement before he ordered, "Be ready for anything."

Jozu nodded and left to prepare the ship and the crew for anything that might come their way.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The scene between Shanks and Whitebeard I wrote right after I posted the first chapter (I was waiting patiently to posted it ^^).
> 
> Sooooooo, what do you think?
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> Leave a review.. Pretty please.


	7. Marco's Shitty Day

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author notes:
> 
> .
> 
>  
> 
> The chapter was beta'd by the wonderful Gerbilfrind who helped me a lot with grammar and paraphrasing and general ideas. I really enjoy working with her (*Ace's deep bow*)
> 
> .
> 
> .
> 
> Warnings:
> 
> English is my fourth language. Warning may change in the future.
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> Hope you enjoy,
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> See notes at the END

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Marco felt slight tremble run down his spine while _finally_ boarding the Moby Dick.

_Home, sweet home._

He was the first to climb followed by Ace, leaving his subordinates to put everything in order before following them.

His senses were _screaming_ at him to take Ace and run, as far away as possible.

Marco, who usually never ignored his senses, committed a grave mistake, an **unforgivable** one and ignored them without a second thought.

In the minutes, days, weeks and months to come, he would think longly to this moment and _wish_ (always beating himself for not) he chose differently.

In that moment Marco longed for hot shower, hot meal and his bed, and _most_ importantly having at least thirty people between him and Ace.

_He loved Ace, he really did,_ and after this voyage he even understood him better, he was almost sure that Ace trusted him more and felt closer to him too. But babysitting a depressed teenager was not something he ever wanted to repeat, it was actually in the list of things to **never** experience again.

He chalked up the foreboding feeling his senses were warning him from to the _welcoming_ they were surely to receive soon on the Moby Dick.

Especially when the welcoming committee was run by Thatch and Haruta (they created it and _voluntary_ ran it to his unfortunate pain and many headaches).

Those two terrors, and whoever helped them, if things get out of control (like the last few times) or if any damage happened to the ship, well, there were enough _duties_ (bathroom cleaning, accounting, night watch and paperwork. More like chores for the naughty children, F**king seriously!) to go around, they better not piss him off _too_ much.

Even though he knew what was awaiting for them, he decided to play along with whatever those brothers and sisters of his had planned and decided against warning Ace and to let them have their fun for a bit.

He readied himself, he was a seasoned pirate and had quite the experience with the language of pranks and mischievousness that Thatch and Haruta spoke, he might even get unwind a bit in the processes and enjoy the face of dumbfounded Ace.

The only problem with his plan was…

The problem was that he, Marco the first mate of the strongest crew in the world, was almost as dumbfounded as Ace.

Really!

He had imagined a lot of things, a lot of ways that the crew would try to welcome them back to the Moby Dick (especially, to try to cheer up the depressed Ace), from a full blown party to a very elaborate prank, like ignoring them (which was the last prank they tried on Namur, they had the whole crew pretend that he never left and how they were able to have the whole crew agree to play along with the idea was beyond Marco), or when they had one of the new recruits after arriving back from his first voyage convinced that he should run bare chested around the deck of the Moby Dick five times while hitting his chest and singing " _Do what you want, 'cause a pirate is free, You are a pirate! Yar har, fiddle di dee, Being a pirate is all-right with me, being a Whitebeard pirate is the dream, Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free, You are a pirate! Yo Ho, ahoy and avast, Being a Whitebeard pirate is really badass!..._ "

It was an amusing sight the first time. Then they were able to convince other new recruits that it was a _rite of passage_ to the crew, that was, until Marco had to put his foot down. None of them were blessed with any singing voice, to put it bluntly their singing voice was making his ears bleed, he had needed to use armored Haki in his ears for God sake.

Thatch was so upset with him for being a _party pooper and destroying all the fun_ (as Thatch so _eloquently_ described) that he didn't speak to Marco for whole two glorious days, _pity_ , more would have been better…

So nothing should have surprised him, he was an experienced pirate. For God sake, he was the first mate to strongest crew in the world (Yes, he knew he was repeating himself).

He definitely didn't expect this.

He didn't even know what _this_ was.

Thatch and Haruta were sitting on the floor, no, they were _kneeling_ in the ship wooden floor with incredibly white faces, was that makeup on their faces? Haruta was willing to put on makeup?

Thatch had done worse things, nothing he could do would ever surprise Marco...

But…

But where in the hell they found this much white powder.

_Izo?_

Marco moved his sight from the two ridiculous figures to search his surroundings.

He heard several gasps, some of awe and some of alarm, and many curses coming from behind him. The small crew of their small ship was all present behind him, Ace had come to stand beside him blinking his eyes and closing and opening his mouth several times, no sound coming out.

They were all like Marco, trying to understand the scene before them.

Marco finally spotted what he was looking for.

Izo was also on deck with a white kimono and white makeup on his face (that wasn't unusual) holding a candle in both hands. What was _unusual_ (impossible really!) was that he gave up his powder to the use...what the heck?

How many people were here?

Marco began to count, white faces, no white people and it was more than half the crew.

Shit, wasn't that Fossa standing there? Someone had even painted the little hair he had and his almost bald head white.

Marco raised an eyebrow trying to catch his eyes, to ask him what the hell? But Fossa was staring stubbornly at the wooden floor (Blackmailed? Haruta?).

Everything was white, the flowers were also white... some were using their white bed linens to cover themselves or some part of their bodies.

The white make up on the face, kept coming back to Marco's mind, it kept nagging at him. It seemed something he should know, something obvious, all the white….

No way it was a powder, Izo would not agree to part from his expensive special powder and even if by some miracle he actually agreed, he most definitely did not have the quantity to put it on all of these people, it can only be _Ouuffttt_.. flour.

Damn you Thatch, Marco felt a headache arrive in fullforce and his right eye began twitch. He thought he made it quite clear that flour was never to be used in any kind of prank after the last haunted ship prank they pulled (apparently he did not make that clear enough, a mistake he intended to swiftly and unmercifully correct).

Dammit! Marco cursed inwardly, they would have to replenish their food stocks again and he had just checked all the supplies two weeks ago, f**ck...

Marco knew exactly who was going to be responsible for this duty, _yes_ , he knew the best man for such a complex and tiring task.

Marco sighed and took deep breaths, trying to calm his fraying nerves.

_What the hell was the smell in the air?_

Some of the crew were holding sticks of burning _incense_ in their hands that smelled like strawberry and tangerine and if his nose was not mistaking a little bit of mango sorbet, what in the seven seas were they planning..

Marco got back to eyeing the bane of his existence.

They were wearing a white ceremonial robes embroidered in gold (Thatch was not wearing his chief attire!), where the heck did they find those clothes? Did Izo sew this in less than week, was it real threads of gold, seemed like it...

What the heck was this horror show, were they trying to make a play of some kind? How was that supposed to be a prank?

Well, Marco, Ace and his subordinates were dumbfoundedly waiting for the act to start.. or was their purpose to have them became dumbfounded... _then they had succeeded_...

And then it began...

More white outfitted people came holding candles or white flowers, wearing bed linens as robes for some reason. Two were holding a picture, they all stood behind the kneeling Thatch and Haruta in some kind of formation, _HUH_.

Ace's wanted poster.

Ac's wanted poster framed.

What the heck...

Behind Marco, Lacus jumped up and down hooting amidst some colorful cursing, he had won! Ace's bounty had increased by 275 million Beli exactly like Lacus betted, he had the devil's luck, Marco raised his eyebrow in appreciation.

The framed poster had flowers stuck to it, and pink hearts drawn on it, Marco grimaced, that shade of pink was hurting his eyes, Marco would bet he knew who chose it. Even the poor blue _smileys_ on Ace's orange hat had not been spared.

He was not the only one to notice the _'art'_ , he heard Ace murmur uncomprehendingly in great dismay while clutching the hat on his back protectively, "frowny and smiley?"

Marco felt a pained pang looking at the frowning and smiling faces with pinky hearts instead of eyes.

Only Jozu was in his usual attire (no white, thank goodness) standing a bit far from the group but he looked real tense… What was going on, Marco narrowed his eyes, Jozu was tense like this only in dang...

Boom…

Boom…

Boom…

There was a drum beat, and no it wasn't his twitching eye or his throbbing head. Someone was actually beating on some empty barrels or something of the kind.

"Oh, bless this ship, our beloved god," Thatch and Haruta were _chanting loudly and swaying their bodies with beat_.

"Oh, Our beloved god," everyone else had their hands up as if praying and were repeating after them with what supposed to be a chant or a song, _they were utterly awful_ , Marco was only able to comprehend the gibberish being chanted because the _two ringleaders_ said it first.

_So, it was a play of some kind…_ _**joy** _ _._

Marco wanted to rub his head, or bang it into a convenient hard surface, preferably something that would knock him unconscious for a long time.

Ace seemed to wake up from his daze when the chanting begun, he titled his head in Marco's direction and whispered "Are we on the right ship?" his voice had underlying hope to that they had just made a wrong turn or misread something.

Marco felt bad about crushing Ace's desperate hopes, "Unfortunately we are," he murmured back, rubbing his head (he would _forgo_ the banging option for now, a mature adult needed to be present).

"Oh," was Ace's answer, and he got back to watching the horror show with confused but interested look, still clutching his hat with one hand, Marco noted.

"Oh, our dear lord protect us from the cannonballs,

Oh our beloved god,

Make it rain mountains of gold,

We ask for forgiveness for any grievance,

And promise to sacrifice to your stomach, meats and sake of all kinds,

Oh, God Ace we apologize for poking you and drawing on your face," they all chanted together.

It was what, guessed Marco, was supposed to be the _climax of the show_. Those holding candles and flowers did some kind of strange dance, putting their hands high up and jumping around, going in circle around Ace's picture.

"Forgive us for these grievances.. you are so merciful... "

Ace blinked several times, rubbing his eyes and ears, when the chant ended and shouts with all kind of demands were shouted in his direction.

"God Ace, Please bless us with volcanoes of gold.."

"Your grace you should have told us that you needed so much meat because you wanted to inflate into a balloon to protect us.."

"That you eat so much only for our sake, such a noble sacrifice.."

"We apologize for any sin please forgive us, the sinners of cake eaters…."

"From now on we are meat eaters only."

Thatch and Haruta shared a look and seemed like they couldn't hold it in any more. Looking at Ace's face and seeing the confused look tinted with horror on Ace up close, they tumbled to the ground laughing hysterically, dusting the wooden deck with white, Marco shook his head, someone needed to clean all of this shit...and he had several volunteers in mind...

His subordinates behind them were whispering and murmuring to each other in their confusion, trying to make some kind of sense out of what just happened, Marco could only hear some of what they were saying with all the ruckus around them.

"Are they shouting at Ace demanding gold?"

"Yeah, apparently…."

"I think so.."

"Because of his bounty increase?"

"I don't think so, they did nothing like that when mine was increased, but then again my increase wasn't that impressive..."

"They made me buy drinks for everyone…."

"I don't want my bounty to increase if that's what will they do to me..."

"No, it's a rite of passage of some sort..."

"I thought it was singing bare chested around the Moby."

"What? We didn't do something like that.."

"What? We have to do something like that..."

Marco patience disappeared when he looked at the still laughing crowd and he demanded coolly.

"Ok, you had your fun, yoi. Someone want to explain?"

Everyone around him (that was smart enough to stop laughing hearing _that_ tone of voice, and he said smart that didn't include the rolling morons in front of them.. ) was either shaking their heads or shrugging, it was one of two things Marco concluded.

1\. Too complicated to explain or something that no one wanted to explain for variety of reasons.

2\. Nobody actually knew, and they were going along with whatever Thatch and Haruta wanted because why the hell not (it was easier from the alternative, trying to understand how their minds actually worked).

Marco had feeling it was the _later_.

"To think I missed this place," Marco muttered under his breath, rubbing his aching head. He tilted his head to Ace's direction and asked hopefully, "Ace, how about you and I sail to Paradise?"

Ace didn't answer him, he was busy trying to rescue himself from the laughing octopus (Thatch) clinging to his legs, demanding golden balls in exchange for all the meat he gave him...

Marco was considering his options when Whitebeard bellowed calling for his returning sons.

Marco grabbed Ace by the neck, kicked the _octopus_ and dragged Ace over to their father's chair, while they were moving Marco _accidentally_ stepped on the hair of the sprawled octopus, which then earned Marco an indignant yell from it.

Marco let go of Ace's neck and turned with smirk on his face and a mocking raised eyebrow, which made Thatch splutter with anger, especially with everyone laughing and snickering around him.

Marco shook his head and continued to the direction of their father's chair, Ace followed behind Marco a little bit dazed. Ace was walking backwards, looking at the scene behind him trying to understand what the whole thing was about, were they laughing at him or trying to get him to laugh with them on something? Either way what the hell was this supposed to be?

Marco stopped abruptly and Ace collided into his back and fell face down right onto the deck, Marco heard him cursing but didn't turn to check on him, instead he was staring at ...

"Jozu, please tell me that I am seeing things," Marco begged of Jozu quietly, Jozu had stopped walking when Marco did, he was following them silently.

"Unfortunately no."

_That was what had made him so tense._

_F**cking shit._

"What is _he_ doing here?" Marco asked from behind gritted teeth, the good mood of messing with Thatch had _long_ disappeared.

Jozu looked deliberately at Ace behind him who had already got comfortable on the floor and was still eyeing the scene behind him with bewilderment. Both Izo and Haruta were sitting in front of him asking if his grace was alright or needed some meat to replenish his strength.

Izo, _really_?

Marco cursed under his breath, he should have trusted his gut feeling and _abandoned_ the ship, _shit_...

"I should have taken Ace and gone to Paradise, dammit," muttered Marco to himself, thinking it wasn't yet too late for such _venture._ He turned intending to do just that when he collided with the now standing Ace, who took two steps back barely keeping his balance.

"What the hell Marco?" Ace asked in confusion. With no reply forthcoming, he looked at what made Marco's eye twitch so visibly.

"Shanks," Ace called happily, surprise evident on his face and the tone of his voice. He sidestepped Marco, who was able at the last moment to stop his hand from reaching out and grabbing Ace, and then dragging him far away from here for Ace's _own_ sake.

Marco pushed down the the feelings of rage and worry and turned with a heavy heart to face the new dangerous _annoyance_ of the day with blank and bored face.

Red Hair, who was sitting with empty bottles of sake around him and one in his hand and was eyeing everything with mirth and laughter in his eyes, stood up and welcomed Ace warmly, "Hey kiddo."

Ace was immediately engulfed in a reassuring embrace.

"What are you doing here?" asked Ace looking at Shanks in wonder.

Shanks raised an eyebrow as if saying, _really you need to ask?_

"Oh, Luffy," answered Ace sheepishly, which seemed to remind him.

Ace patted Shanks shoulder and turned to their father.

"Pops," Ace's voice still had a bit of wonder uttering this word even after five months, Marco guessed that when that quality disappeared then he would really be feeling at home.

"Welcome back, son," Whitebeard had an amused look in his face. He had seen the whole thing going down from his chair with good sake in his hand (which meant he knew about the prank and what they had planned, and he let them waste who knew how many bags of flour. That was another matter to add to the list of things he wanted to discuss with his dear father) and where were the nurses anyway, who was supposed to be on duty today, Marco narrowed his eyes at his father's hand that was holding a huge bottle of sake (what else could it be?).

Whitebeard, who knew that look, raised the bottle deliberately to toast his upset son and took a big swig.

Marco sighed, there was no helping it.

"I'm back," Ace sheepishly answered, rubbing the back of his head, you could clearly see how happy he was to have a _home_. Then as if waking up from a happy dream to an unimaginable nightmare, Ace's whole body tensed and he demanded.

"Did they really find Luffy and Marcy? Are they okay? What happened? Do they know to where are they going? How did they seem? Were they hurt? Injured? Someone after them?" Ace asked all in one breath, he seemed to have a million and one things to ask.

When Ace stopped to take a much needed breath Whitebeard answered, his voice soft but firm, "They seem okay but are troublemakers indeed as you said. A.O and Doma are following their trail and they should be able to find them soon. We will get a call from them soon telling us what they found." Whitebeard eyed his son's hopeful face and added "What we know you know."

Ace's body seemed to slump and he sat on the ground. Red Hair sat beside him giving him a pat on the shoulder.

There was some color back to his body, a _half depressed teenager,_ concluded Marco.

Coming to stand beside Marco and Jozu was Izo, still in his white kimono, Haruta who had taken off his ropes and Thatch who was giving him the dirty look and still messing with his hair, trying to comb it to its original form. The dirty look was gonna become much dirtier when Marco announced the duties of each division later tonight for the not so _near_ future.

"So, who would like to explain about the whole _scene-play-thing_ from before, yoi?" Marco asked again quietly, his eyes not leaving Ace.

His question got a smile from Izo, giggles from Haruta, and snort of laughter from Thatch who was putting the final touch on his perfect _pompadour_ hair. Jozu only shook his head, giving him the impression that it really wasn't worth the headache.

Marco sighed inwardly. He would know soon enough, Thatch and Haruta would want him and Ace to appreciate their work of _art_ , so they would explain repeatedly in day or two (enough that he would regret ever asking). Marco would gave them a half day before they began following them around explaining their _genius prank_.

Marco gave Ace his undivided attention. They were finally home, someone else was supposed to take care of the _babysitting_ duty. There were several people right here he would trust with his life, some were standing right beside him, and they would keep Ace safe (maybe not mentally, some were too dum.. _simpleminded_ to understand the complicated creature that was Ace) but still, he couldn't make himself move an inch from his place.

Red Hair was speaking quietly to Ace and Ace had titled his head to Shank's direction in order to listen more closely.

Marco's eyes narrowed to slits when Red Hair _casually_ put his arm around Ace's shoulders. What was he planning? What was his purpose here?

This sight irritated him to no end.

No, he wasn't being overprotective. No, and he definitely was not jealous (a voice similar to Izo in his head whispered _keep telling yourself that_ ). It was quite normal to feel irritated when another Yonko was trying to recruit your crewmate plainly in front of you (that was his answer to the whispers, thank you very much).

As if feeling someone was irritated with him (and wanting to exploit that), the source of his _irritation_ titled his head laughing, and looked behind him, spotting Marco, he cut his laughter and gave Marco a big smile, and asked.

"Ohh, if it isn't Marco the phoenix will you join my crew?"

Marco didn't need to think before he answered (that damn _arm_ was still around Ace, maybe, _just maybe_ he should cut that one off too, give Shanks symmetry again. Shanks would thanks him, really. Marco was just being a good samaritan).

"Die."

The answer made Red Hair and Ace (the little traitor) snicker and even their father had a knowing smile on his face.

Izo smiled beside him, and stage whispered, "Ohh Marco, watch out, or your beautiful blue flames are gonna turn green."

Marco refused to take a bite of this _bait_.

"HUH, what? You can change colors? Why you never told me? I want to see," Thatch demanded like a small excited child finding about Christmas for the first time. Thatch was looking at Marco as if expecting some fireworks, Marco didn't bother even with shaking his head.

"Uhg, Thatch you moron, Izo meant the green monster," Haruta explained and after small pause and seeing the still confused look on Thatch's face, Haruta added shaking his head in exasperation, "Jealousy!"

"Jealousy has a color?" was Thatch immediate question, a look of wonder on his face.

Haruta stared at him openmouthed while both Izo and Marco shared a look of 'what did I do in my life to deserve this' combined with 'why I am not surprised', and 'Oh God, gave me more patience'.

Haruta finally closed his mouth and gave Thatch a hard knock to the head, making Thatch forget about the colors. Instead Thatch began complaining, with tears in his eyes, to Jozu about how everyone was _mean_ to him today and using violence against him, he was a delicate flower, they shouldn't touch his fabulous hair, he didn't deserve such behavior against his _person_.

Marco had several things to remark about...

"Pops," a loud call came from inside the ship, cutting his plans to _tear_ Thatch a new one (saved by..).

Curiel came running from inside the ship stopping his stride when he saw the scene that welcomed him.

_Apparently he wasn't part of the prank, Marco knew who would get a light duty for the next month or so._

Curiel seemed to be scanning the scene around him with bewilderment and uncertainty until his eyes landed at the crying Thatch (probably because of his loudness) that was trying to gently comb his hair once again, Curiel's face crunching up in confusion. Marco could follow his thoughts clearly: what the hell made Thatch cry? Thatch and Haruta were thick as thieves today planning something that he wanted nothing to do with, Izo wasn't pissed at Thatch and Marco wasn't here …

Curiel continued to scan the scene by Thatch, trying to find what could make the happy idiot so upset….

Marco saw it happen when Curiel seemed to realize that _yes_ , Marco was actually here.

"Yo, Marco you're back, where's Ace?"

Ace hearing his name, looked behind him seeing Curiel, he shouted, "Yo, Curiel, here," and waved his hand (finally the _hand_ was no longer on Ace's shoulder anymore).

"Great," called Curiel moving hurriedly to their direction while speaking loudly, "I have the A.O pirates on the line."

This made Ace jump in place and made everyone more alert, even Red Hair stopped smiling.

"Pops," said Curiel, it was a greeting and a question (and a show of deep seated respect), Whitebeard nodded and ordered, "Gave the Den Den Mushi to Ace."

Ace body relaxed and he smiled his half smile, "Thanks pops."

His father smiled back his eyes softened, and gave Ace another nod telling him do what he saw fit. Marco shook his head inwardly in fondness, their father was sucker for his children's selfish desires.

Marco moved to stand beside Ace, ignoring the still sitting Red Hair, (he was air, just an annoying wind) Ace turned to him and smiled a bit. Marco gave him a raised eyebrow and a pat on the shoulder, telling him clearly that he was here if Ace needed him.

Ace took the Den Den Mushi (with A.O's face) from Curiel carefully with both hands and sat back on the floor. He put the Den Den Mushi on the floor in front of him. Marco stayed standing beside him.

"Hello," Ace said unsure.

"Hello, is this pops?" Came the fast answer.

"No, this is Ace," Ace seemed unsure how to proceed, no, how to begin.

"Ace?" Repeated the confused voice, the Den Den Mushi was wrinkling its nose. Marco was not sure who was speaking, it sounded like A.O and he was the one that usually spoke with pops, but it was as if he was speaking through his _nose_.

"Ehm, Yes thank you for looking for my siblings," Ace answered still unsure.

"Wait a second, you're the brother of the two **terrors** ," the Den Den Mushi had bugged eyes and an open mouth, Marco noted feeling a bit amused at the exaggerated reaction.

Ace smirked at the clear note of irritation in the speaker voice, Red Hair was chuckling beside him, their father had an amused anticipation look on his face.

Before Ace could answer and assure him that yes those two terrors were his darling brother and sister came the accused shouts.

"Why the hell didn't you tell us that the brat had a devil fruit power. Huh, it would've been great to know something like that!"

Ace looked taken aback and he tensed up.

_Shit_ , Marco knew he had forgotten something.

Ace opened his mouth to answer, but Marco cut in, "It is my fault, yoi."

_Dammit, Ace's revelation had made him forget everything else._

"Ace told me and I should've told you but other things were on my mind, yoi."

Red Hair snickered, Marco's eyes began to twitch once again so he said calmly and loudly, "At least I didn't let a seven year child eat a devil fruit, yoi."

Shanks spluttered, he stopped laughing, and stared at Marco who was giving him a raised eye, _challenging him_.

"I didn't let him eat it," he denied, "He ate it all on his own."

"Ohh," intoned Marco with another raised eyebrow, "where exactly was the devil fruit kept?"

Ace, eyeing both of them with mischievous look in his eyes, decided to add more oil to the flames, "Luffy said it was in a treasure box on the counter, and he thought it was a dessert."

"Unlocked box?" Marco asked, using the new information for his own advantage. He was waiting for an answer or any kind of reaction from Red Hair for him to _exploit_. Red Hair was busy looking at Ace accusingly (who smiled sheepishly in a non-vocal apology) and refusing to make any eye contact with Marco, Red Hair's face was completely blank.

But Marco intended to _milk_ this moment for all it was worth.

"You call yourself a pirate, yoi, yet you left a treasure chest open in the _open._ "

Red Hair was still refusing to look at him, making Marco hackles rise even more.

Whitebeard was quietly observing everything, his eyes full of amusement, letting everything play in front of him without his intervention. It was a treat to see his eldest lose a bit of control.

"Marco, is that you?" asked the voice of the Den Den Mushi cutting through Marco's verbal attacks and reminding him that he wasn't alone here (Marco refused to look around and see the reactions of his brothers or the _knowing_ looks thrown in his direction from Izo and Jozu) instead he answered, "Yeah," and going with his gut, he added, "A.O."

"Yes," A.O answered.

Ace remembered what the whole point of this call was about and cut in hurriedly, "Did you find them?"

"Yes," A.O answered immediately.

Ace's whole face and body lit up, he half stood up in a happy jump, Marco hadn't seen this _Ace_ for a while.

"Can I..." Ace began to ask excitedly, his face showing deep relief and joy, the sprinkling freckles on his cheeks appeared to sparkle showing how truly happy he was.

"Kinda," come the correction from A.O.

Ace sat back down his face blank again, and quietly asked "What do you mean?"

"We found them and then we lost them," the voice quietly explained, with no small amount of hesitation underlying their words.

" **What do you mean you lost them**?" Ace and Red Hair both shouted in rage, glaring furiously at the ( _poor_ ) Den Den Mushi. Ace was emitting small hot flames on his shoulders, he and Red Hair shared a look of complete understanding, which didn't sit well with Marco.

The line stayed quiet, Ace took a deep breath and seemed to force himself to relax with great effort.

"Could you please explain from the beginning," Ace asked calmly, his right hand was clutching his feet while the other one was near the Den Den Mushi, not touching it, but opening and closing.

Ace's whole demeanor was emitting a tense feeling, Marco put his hand gently on Ace's shoulder (the flames dancing around his touch) and squeezed a bit, " _please_ " Ace added.

The quiet from the other side continued, Ace's hand come to his own shoulder touching Marco's hand and squeezing back, then Ace let his arm drop back to his lap.

"Do you know about what happened in the Goddess Island?" Finally A.O answered or more accurately _asked them_.

"HUH?" Was Ace's confused response.

Marco had heard of that island before, he couldn't remember the exact details but it was in the list of islands to avoid.

Thatch, who was with others listening in jumped near them and crouched down by Ace he said, "Hey A.O, we didn't have the chance to tell them yet, they just arrived and we couldn't tell them too much on the Den Den Mushi call," he said the last bit conspiringly.

"Yeah, got it Thatch-chan."

"Don't worry, we will fill them in later," Thatch added quite happily. Marco had feeling it was all somehow connected to the _Oh unique_ _welcoming_ they got.

"Do you have a cold?" Thatch asked, scrunching his nose in worry, "your voice sounds different."

That question brought laughter and loud snickers from the other side of the call, apparently A.O's crew was listening in, just like them.

Marco heard A.O curse colorfully at them, with his _cold_ it sounded funny. The Den Den Mushi was showing bugged eyes again, now with clenching teeth.

"He has broken nose thanks to your little sister," someone new took the Den Den Mushi and explained, making laughter arrive to their side too, and making Thatch lose his balance laughing and fall on his back.

Ace looked a bit floored and then he gave a chuckle too.

Marco lifted his hand from Ace's shoulder and helped the laughing Thatch stand up, Thatch thanked him smiling, apparently he had already forgotten his _grudge_ against Marco, but unfortunately for Thatch, Marco had not (cleaning, food stocks checks, night watch and the list goes on).

_Two terrors indeed_ thought Marco amused looking at the laughing Ace and remembering all the stories that Ace shared with him on their voyage about his two siblings.

Red Hair was laughing all out.

"At least I can walk straight," came A.O's taunting voice.

"Oh God," Ace stopped laughing and winced as if in great pain, his whole body slumping.

"How bad?" Ace asked, his voice filled with worry and dread.

"Needed three people to lift him up and bring him to the ship, and he stopped crying only after two hours with constant ice on _it_ ," Ace grimaced some more, Marco winced while Haruta stopped clutching his stomach and threw himself at the floor, hitting the deck with fisted hands and laughing nonstop, even Izo was hiding a smile behind his hand and Jozu gave a snort and seemed to relax a bit.

Thatch asked looking around him in bewilderment, not liking the feeling of being left out, "why would a nose injury stop you from walking right?"

His question made new loud laughter erupt in both sides, Hatura choked on laugh and began coughing, he finally was trying to sit up, Izo needed to kneel and pat him on the back, Jozu shook his head in worry, or was it in exasperation?

Someone finally explained what had happened to the confused Thatch.

"No, I got kicked on the nose, Dustin got kicked in the _balls_ ," A.O said and there was a tiny bit of gratefulness underlying his voice, a clear relief that he wasn't the victim of the latter.

Thatch was mouthing the words when he finally realized the meaning of what happened and turned to Ace shouting accusingly "What the hell Ace? Don't your brother and sister know that there things that just shouldn't be done? That is sacred place to all men," he had both his hands hovering protectively around his genital area.

Red Hair choked on the sake he was drinking, spitting it on some unaware crewmates and began laughing all out while apologizing. Jozu snorted a long laugh beside him, Marco would swear he heard the still kneeling Izo giggle, Haruta gave up on sitting and was trying to breathe and laugh at the same time, which made him cough laughs and hiccup snorts.

"It was Marcy," guessed Ace his shoulders slumped, not bothering to answer Thatch's accusations.

"It was the girl," come the voice from A.O's side in the same time, confirming Ace's assumption.

Marco would swore he heard Ace murmur ' _don't I know it_ '. He was going to ask Ace about it privately, there definitely was an entertaining story there and he needed all the entertainment he could get after this day ended.

"Stop lying, she didn't kick you in the nose she planted a huge pot on your face," a voice from the other end of Den Den Mushi loudly announced. The Den Den Mushi had lopsided smirk on its face and a playful glint in its eyes, and then in knowing voice, he added "a really _slimy_ one, so slimy it was **shiny**."

Hearing that made ringing hoots of laughter break out on A.O's side.

Marco gave smirk while imaging the _shiny_ pot smacking on A.O's face.

"Drool _and spit_ ," Red Hair generously explained to the uncomprehending pirates around him while drinking joyfully from his bottle.

"Who the hell drags a huge pot with him while running?" Asked A.O in defeat, the Den Den Mushi shaking in a slumped pose, not expecting an answer.

Ace sighed and answered nonetheless, "That would be Luffy," making Red Hair laugh and hit the ground with his bottle repeatedly.

After the laughter (finally) decreased on both sides of the Den Den Mushi Ace asked again, he seemed really tired and even Red Hair quieted down and was eyeing Ace worriedly.

"Would you please explain what happened?"

A.O sighed, murmuring about a killing headache and for everyone to shut the f**ck up and then he began explaining.

"Well, we sailed according to the information Doma gave us and arrived late morning to the island we suspected your siblings were docked on." He paused, trying to get his thoughts in order, guessed Marco.

"We easily confirmed that they were actually here by finding the ship that the residents of Goddess Island gave them," someone jumped in to add after A.O finished, "it would have been hard to miss," someone muttered sarcastically which earned him snickers and whistles of agreement.

A.O had probably done something because the quiet was back few seconds later and A.O continued.

"We asked around at the docks and they said that the ship arrived yesterday night, so I and some of my crew went to look for them in the town straight away using their wanted posters, and some stayed at the docks in case they came back here," A.O sighed and then added sorrowfully "and you know what _happened_ when we found them," invoking laughter and chuckles all around once again.

A.O waited until after the laughter diminished as if reflecting on what had happened and then added.

"We couldn't even ask them anything, they just ran and attacked us when we tried to stop them and then your brother just _shot_ himself and your sister into the sky with whatever power he had, leaving behind a bag."

A.O added, his voice showing how tired he was, "I guess it was our fault too, for just trying to grab them."

"You tried to grab them," Ace repeated slowly shaking his head, Red hair snorted a humorless laugh.

A.O ignored their reactions, and continued to give details.

"I sent some men to look for them in the hills and some to stay in their small ship."

The broken nose effect was more prominent the more he spoke, Marco felt a twinge of pity for him.

"If you have any advice on how to _handle_ them that will be great," A.O asked earnestly and added, "I don't want any more injuries to my men and we don't want to injure them."

Ace's body tensed and so did Red Hair at the _indication_ that the two brats could get hurt. Marco didn't like _him_ but he could respect Shanks's power and right now his aura was emitting just that.

"First don't try to grab them," Ace warned, his voice was calm but not his body.

Snickers and snorts come from both sides.

"Oh, we learnt that for ourselves," assured some other voice combined with a distinct Den Den Mushi eye roll, not A.O, was it Dustin? the poor fellow with the _blue balls_.

"Tell them straight away that you know me," Ace added ignoring the laughter and the calls around them.

"We should have done that," muttered A.O angrily, probably at himself.

"It will make them stop running and attacking you for few seconds at worst," Ace explained, his voice letting them know this was not a magical solution, and he added to stress this point, "But it will make them more suspicious."

Ace paused and while sighing he added "Or should l say it will make Marcy more suspicious and Luffy will do what Marcy tells him."

Marco heard him murmur softly, "hopefully," and saw Red Hair give Ace a _questioning_ look combined with a raised eyebrow as if asking, _really?_.

Ace stopped speaking, lost in thought, he was trying to find the best way to handle the suspicious sister of his.

"We figured that she ran the show," A.O added his two Beli when the silence continued and explained.

"We asked around to see what the island people knew about them, and we got different reactions."

"Oh?" asked a smiling Shanks when Ace didn't react immediately to the new information.

"Some old lady chased some of my men with her broom shouting at us to leave the poor children alone."

They heard someone murmur near A.O, "she was vicious," followed by jeers and snickers.

"A small child followed my men around, staring at them and growling, he even threw some rotten tomatoes at them."

A.O sighed again, Marco could clearly imagine him rubbing his head in irritation, "and then there was that _accident_."

Someone laughed and remarked, "the poor sod almost shitted himself."

"What happened?" asked Shanks and Thatch together excitedly, they shared an animated look their smiles getting bigger, _Marco had a real bad feeling about this_.

A.O sighed deeply again and then ordered, "Ray, you explain."

The voice that gave the _shitting_ remark spoke.

"We needed some new parts to fix the second engine, so I looked around and found a shop with the parts we needed and while I was there I decided to show the two brat's posters."

A cough near him made him correct himself, "the two adorable children's posters."

Ace snorted when he heard Ray use _adorable_ to describe his siblings.

Ray paused and then began to describe the situation," there were three young men cleaning and organizing things around the shop and an old man behind the counter who went looking for the parts in the warehouse adjacent to the shop," he stopped speaking, letting everything sink in.

"So I asked the two young men close to me if they happened to see these two while showing them their wanted posters," Ray paused.

Marco guessed that it wasn't the second or third time he was telling this story, but that he had told it quite a number of times, Ray knew how to keep his listeners in suspense.

"One of them screamed and stumbled to the floor while trying to run away, shaking all the while," he paused deliberately again.

"The other one just fainted and fell to the floor, not moving." He paused again.

"The other young man came running from the other side of the shop to see what had happened and when he saw the wanted posters I was holding in each hand he just knelt on the floor and begin begging for forgiveness," Ray paused and murmured, as if speaking to himself, "wasn't sure what was he saying, but between the jumbled 'sorries' I swear he said, small tomato, be good, no more, and not the _baby parts_."

Everyone was listening in anticipation around Marco, some with big smiles on their faces and some murmuring excitedly about what could had happened while snickers and chuckles could be heard in the other side of the call, it was apparent that they knew the story.

"The old man came in at that moment bringing the parts with him, he was saying how lucky I was because he found the exact parts and how he usually didn't keep them in stock because they were _so_ expensive. He stopped speaking when he saw the scene in front of him," Ray stopped and took a long breath.

"I was still stupidly standing there with their wanted posters in each hand and when the man saw them he trembled. I swear you could see the tremble run down his whole huge body down and up again."

He stopped speaking for dramatic effect, Marco could see how everyone was moving a bit closer in the Den Den Mushi's direction unconsciously.

"We stood there for few seconds, he was clutching the parts, I was afraid he would break them, I was standing there staring at him staring at the wanted posters," Ray paused and hurriedly added.

"The man finally squeaked 'friends of yours?', the question caught me unprepared, I wasn't sure how to answer him but then I said 'yes, I am looking for them? Did you meet them? When was it? But the man didn't answer me, he moved carefully to my direction and then he held the parts for me to take, which I did after putting the wanted posters in my bag, and I asked him how much I owed him."

Ray stopped again pausing for few seconds, Marco's eye began to twitch impatiently, he saw Thatch _salivating_ near the Den Den Mushi opening his mouth, probably to demand what happened next, when Ray finally added.

"The man, now less tense without the posters in front of him, shook his head repeatedly saying no need, no need and asked if I could please remind her _highness_ that he and his shops were always in her service and she could come whenever she wanted and take anything, _anything_ she wanted. I was bewildered but told him sure, and he insisted on seeing me out of the shop, telling me any friend of her _gracious grace_ was always welcome."

Laughter and snickers could be heard on both sides with concluding of the story, Thatch, with a _wild_ glint in his eyes (that promised the _perfect_ plan which meant a raging headache for Marco), jumped and run to their father's chair demanding their immediate **adoption to the Whitebeard family** , the still coughing Hatura following his steps, nodding his agreement, and hoarsely begging for the two _adorable_ brats to join the crew. Several of his brothers joined them in this demand, their father just bellowed his laughter as an answer, but Marco knew the look which was _twinkling_ in his father's eyes and what it promised. He felt his headache intensify, Marco stopped himself from rubbing his head again (it wouldn't help anyway, Marco reflected on his previous decision, _just maybe he should have gone with the banging option_ ).

Marco observed Ace, wanting to gauge his reaction to the idea of his siblings joining the crew.

_Hmmm_ , Ace was not saying anything, he hadn't for a while. His body was tilted down and he was clutching his stomach, but he clearly had an amused smirk on his face and so did Red Hair, they both shared a knowing look (making Marco's eye twitch). They looked like they were forcing themselves not to erupt in laughter.

Red Hair lost the battle and began laughing hysterically, he dropped the empty sake bottle and clutched his stomach, there were tears rolling from his eyes.

_What the hell?_ wondered Marco, there seemed to be an obvious joke that everyone was missing except those two, Marco eyed Ace's profile and moved to see his face clearly, he was biting his lips hard.

When he saw that Marco was looking at him he gave a smirk and averted his eyes, not making an eye contact with anybody.

"So Ace you're not only a God but you come from a royal family, you should have told us, your _gracious grace_ ," someone laughingly joked, breaking the _happy_ mood.

Ace tensed up immediately, his smirk disappearing.

_Shit, not good, if everyone began calling Ace your highness it would be a disaster_.

"What exactly had happened with those people to make them behave like this, yoi?" Marco asked immediately and loudly intending to distract Ace and everyone else from Ace's reaction, he saw both Shanks and Izo eyeing Ace worriedly and speculatively, and their father's eyes were narrowed.

"Apparently the three young men that were at the shop are known troublemakers in the town and they were committing some mischief destroying a small restaurant and even stole the br... adorable young boy's hat," Ray was more than happy to explain, giving a chuckle at the end.

The mood in the ship changed, and not into something Marco had expected, he was trying to distract not change the mood by 180 degrees.

The killing aura emitted from both Ace (combined with flames along his arms) and more specifically Red Hair, made everyone except the commanders nearby take several steps back. Some of the crew cried in alarm and others were looking in confusion around them not understanding what could have happened in those few seconds to change the joyful mood, and few _unlucky_ to be too near to the _power source_ gone to sleep a bit early (AKA fainted).

Marco eyes narrowed even their father seemed unhappy, he was frowning, and no, it wasn't because of Ace and Red Hair's reaction.

_What did Ray say again? What was in his words that triggered such reaction? The hat accident? When Marco saw the hat in the wanted poster, it did seems familiar to his eyes, he couldn't pinpoint why. But what was its importance here?_

Red Hair relaxed his body, going for another bottle of sake and remarked, "Seems the punishment fits the crime," he had a lopsided smile on his face, Red Hair was trying to break the tense mood that he was responsible for creating.

Ace relaxed in return and murmured, "They are lucky that they didn't end up in some hospital bed screaming in agony," and added loudly to the listening Den Den Mushi, "Oi, you should tell your crew mates not under any circumstance to touch the **hat**."

"Got it," come the immediate answer, it seemed that the weighty tense mood had somehow travelled to the other side. Ace seemed on a roll, adding hurriedly in the same serious manner.

"With Marcy you shouldn't call her small or short or tomato," Ace stopped speaking, thinking better to stop any future misunderstandings (or disasters more like it) he corrected himself, "Just don't try to give her nicknames or joke with her. Be to the point when speaking with her until she knows that you are friends and even then don't use the word small or tomato."

Ace had painful look on his face, he added seriously, "Just don't for your own sake!"

"We will let everyone know," murmured A.O. He seemed to take the warning seriously, telling people near him to let everyone know about Ace's advice.

Ace had his arms crossed over his chest when he announced.

"And I think I have the best way to handle _them_."

His announcement brought the quiet that Marco _so_ wished for, people on both sides were waiting to hear the magic way in handling the brats without getting _broken noses_ _adorned with drool and spit or blue balls._

Marco was curious himself, he knew more than anyone here (including Red Hair! Dammit!) how much of handful they were, Ace's stories were echoing in his head.

"Oh?" Came from A.O and he wasn't able to hide how hopeful he sounded.

"Just call me and let me speak with Marcy," Ace said, some of the crew snorted and other shook their head about how obvious it was. Marco smiled at how focused Ace when speaking about handling his darling baby siblings.

"Anything else I could tell you to say to her to prove that you know me and that you wouldn't hurt them would just make her more suspicious and paranoid but speaking to me personally would make her relax and agree to go with you without _too_ much trouble."

Others might have missed the way Ace said _too_ , but not Marco, and apparently Izo with his raised eyebrow, had also noticed. Red Hair also had a big mysterious smile which he was trying to hide behind the sake bottle near his mouth.

"I see, how many Den Den Mushi do we have?" Came A.O.'s voice, he was speaking to someone from his own crew.

"Five counting the one you are using," answered a voice a bit far and added "The group looking in the hills have one, I will call them and let them know about the plan."

"Do that," A.O ordered and then to Ace he said.

"You stay on standby, when we find them we will call you straight away," _and let you handle the two terrors,_ was left unspoken.

"I will be waiting," Ace said seriously and added, "be careful not to let them leave the island, it would be really hard to track them a second time. Marcy doesn't make the same mistake twice and she will be much more vigilant," Ace emphasized the warning.

A.O hummed to indicate that he heard.

"We will keep you updated," A.O said as goodbye.

Clank.

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On the other side of the Moby Dick, seven people in small boat connected to the Moby by two huge ropes stayed out of all the festivities and were trying to make sure that _dinner_ was served on time tonight.

"Catch anything new?" Tim asked, he was a tall man with long beard who was preparing the fishing nets and he was a bit grumpy today. After all he had gotten stuck at dinner duty for the third time this week.

He got calls of no and some head shakes and one grunt.

"What all the ruckus about, Shiky?" Asked Gerald, a big man with curly brown hair hiding his small eyes.

"Oh, Marco and Ace have returned.." Shiky said the young man who had a slim build with short trimmed red hair, he was known to be a bit absent minded in times, which was the case here.

"Shit, means we need to double the number of fishes," complained Lee loudly, casting and reeling in his line, he was a tall man with huge tummy with big green hat hiding his bald head.

"You mean triple it _at least!_ " Tim corrected while groaning, and raising his thick eyebrows in unhappiness.

Groans of despair could be heard everywhere.

"Ahah, weren't Thatch and Haruta planning some kind of prank to welcome them?" asked Darren, he was a plain man, his most distinct feature was his acrostic nose and his deep voice.

"As usual you mean," intoned Ben in his matter of fact tone, evoking sinkers and laughters all around.

Ben was a medium built man who always wore a black long coat no matter the weather and answered in a matter of fact tone to everything, making everything he said sounds like a joke (which fitted him just fine, he liked joking around), even when he was dead serious.

"True, they are always planning some new prank, I think their main work is being the _clowns_ in this ship and then as the commanders," Tim remarked, he and Shiky were about to throw the nets into the water.

"One thing for sure, it is never boring on the Moby," Gerald added, cursing his fishing rod that got jumbled with the nets _again_.

Answers of agreement and nods was uttered by the other six.

"So what did they plan this time?" Asked Darren, not bothering to hide the anticipation in his voice.

Shiky shrugged and muttered, "Wasn't paying attention."

"It was some song about gods that Thatch had everyone memorize," explained Rin, an enthusiastic young man with dark blue hair that was always in ponytail which moved with his every movement. He was the happy go lucky kind of person that found good in everything.

"I saw Thatch and some of his division dragging several bags of flour and saw some of them painting their faces with it. I thought they were doing the ghost ship story again," remarked Lee.

"Nah, Marco was pissed last time about all the wasted flour. He put Thatch and the whole fourth division on cleaning duty and hunting for four months," said Gerald.

"Six months, and storage arrangements too and the night watch for eight," Rin corrected.

"Oh right Rin, I forgot that you are from Thatch's division," Tim shook his head in pity.

"Poor you," Ben added in his matter of fact tone, even Shiky come close to Rin patting him consolingly on the shoulder.

"So, what do you think your division are gonna stuck with this time?" asked Darren amused at Rin's plight.

"We still have the best food and the best parties," Rin defended his division with big smile on his face.

Everyone groaned.

"Rub it in, will you," Darren complained, remembering all the delicious aromas that come wafting from the fourth division private parties.

Thatch had many faults, they were too many to count, but he was known to take special care of his own division.

"What song?" Gerald asked out of nowhere, startling his drooling mates.

"Huh," was Shiky's eloquent answer.

"Ehh, something dear god, bless us with protection from the cannon balls," Rin answered trying to sing the words.

"No, it was give us golden balls," Tim corrected.

Everyone snickered and snorted.

"Huh, I was sure Thatch said don't kick us on the balls," added Ben in his matter of fact tone, making everyone except him laugh harder, Lee almost lost his grip on the rod handle.

"Who is the god?" Inquired Lee still laughing.

"Marco, The chicken god," Ben announced in his special tone.

"No, Ace for sure," Rin said still laughing.

"I heard it was Ace too," Darren concurred with Rin while snorting.

"Haruta was asking around for Ace's wanted poster," Gerald gave the detail, he would know because he was from Haruta's division.

"They framed it," Rin added, amusement clear in his voice.

"God Ace give us golden balls," Ben announced.

Laughter erupted again.

"You forget to say, our beloved god Ace," Tim corrected snickering himself.

More laughter emerged brightening the mood.

"Hey, I think I caught something in the nets," said Darren suddenly, bending over to grip the moving net.

"Finally! We have our beloved god Ace's stomach to fill," Lee said, reeling in his rod and standing up to help in reeling in the huge net.

"It's heavy," Darren added trying to lift it up slowly, Shiky coming to help him too.

"A Big one," he added.

…

There were no wriggling fishes awaiting them.

"Another box," said Gerald shaking his head in misery looking at what the nets revealed.

"How many today?" Asked Darren, sighing.

"The sixth, I think." Answered Tim quietly, his shoulders slumped.

"Bad luck," muttered Shiky.

"Maybe this one will have something valuable in it," said Rin, always the optimistic spirit.

"What was in the last one?" Inquired Lee.

"Wet gunpowder," answered Ben.

"No, that was the first," corrected Tim grumpily.

"And the third," added Shiky, it was the one he pulled out.

"The last one had wet papers in it," Gerald declared.

"Wasn't that the one with nasty smell?" Darren asked

"No, that was the second one, we threw it right back," Tim reminded them, shaking his head at the memory.

"What was it?" Shiky asked wrinkling his nose at the memory of the smell.

"Whatever it was it was nasty," Lee said amidst nods of agreement.

"Just bring the damn axe, and let's open it and then get back to fishing," said Tim while sighing and rubbing his head.

"Aye aye," said Lee and gripped the axe near him.

"Wait," called Rin urgently, when Lee was about to hit it open.

He kneeled down beside the box and touched it carefully.

"Oh our beloved god Ace bless us and give us some golden balls please," Rin gravely intoned while kneeling on the floor, earning laughter and eye rolls from the people surrounding him. He ignored them and repeated the phrase gravely two more times.

"Come on, we don't have all day, we still need to fish something _edible_ ," Tim added in tone of someone on the last thread of his patience.

Lee got to work.

Silence prevailed after the box was violently opened.

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"..."

"..."

"..."

"..."

"Shit," exclaimed Gerald.

"..."

"You are seeing this?" Darren demanded looking around him at the stunned faces.

"..."

"Holy balls!" intoned Ben.

"Oh my God," said Shiky shakily.

"No, you mean, Oh my Ace," Tim corrected absentmindedly staring at…

Thr…..

Three..

Three _golden_ medium sized balls, were inside the treasure box, they were actually not balls, but egg shaped. But for the seven staring pirates, they were balls, and nothing could change their mind about it.

The kneeling Rin stood abruptly up, "I am gonna find Thatch," he announced and bolted up to the ropes, climbing into the Moby.

Shiky was hot on his heels while repeating those two phrases "Holy golden balls!", "Bless our God Ace."

The five remaining pirates, stared silently at the box, then at each other, and then back at the three golden balls, and again at each other and simultaneously exclaimed, "Oh, my Ace."

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In that moment the matter of _great_ importance was forgotten as the five gawking openmouthed pirates would soon be reminded of…

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Rudely and loudly be reminded of.

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_Dinner!_

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_Oh my Ace._

 

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the comments and kudos. 
> 
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> 
> The lyrics for the rite of passage song (bare chested pirates) were taken from: You Are A Pirate by Lazy Town. It was edited to fit the situation ..
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> Let me know what are your thought about this chapter too...
> 
> I am hungry like Luffy to get some reviews :)


	8. Rollercoaster Reunions

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author notes:
> 
> .
> 
> The chapter was beta'd by the wonderful Gerbilfrind who helped me a lot with grammar and paraphrasing and general ideas, and to build the first part of this chapter. I really enjoy working with her XD
> 
> .
> 
> Warnings:
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> English is my fourth language. Warning may change in the future.
> 
> .  
> see notes at the END, IMPORTANT please.

 

 

 

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"Welcome back, Sabo."

Sabo froze in his climbing, his right foot on the ledge of the second floor window and the other one hanging in the air, he adjusted his hat and titled his head up to see Bunny Joe observing him from the balcony on the fourth floor with an amused look clearly shown on his face.

"Yo, Joe, how is it going?"

Joe gave him a raised an eyebrow, slightly impressed with the fact that the young man was not rattled at being caught red handed trying to sneak into the most secure base in the world.

"Sorry for intruding on your dramatic sneaking in."

Sabo blinked once then he gave a full toothy smile, adjusting both his feet on the ledge.

"Not at all!"

Sabo was just waiting for him to get to the point. It seemed like he was quite comfortable standing on the narrow ledge and had all the time in the world.

So this was young man that Dragon was grooming to be the future chief of staff of the Revolutionary Army.

"Koala called an hour ago a bit hysteretic, saying that you disappeared."

Sabo didn't even blink this time nor did he say anything, so Joe added.

"I would call her and let her know that you arrived safely before them."

Sabo adjusted his hat again and said.

"Thank you Joe."

He was lifting himself up to the window above him intending in jumping from there to the third floor balcony near the kitchen, which was almost always open, when Joe added.

"Dragon asked that you go to his office immediately when you arrive."

Sabo almost lost his footing, but was able to hang on to the ledge of the third floor window, and pushed himself with both his feet and jumped to the edge of the balcony. Standing at the edge he turned fully to look at Bunny Joe, who had a blank face this time and told Sabo in nonchalant voice.

"It sounded urgent."

...

..

XXXXX

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...

Sabo knocked at the door and went in without waiting for permission to be granted.

Dragon was looking intensely at the papers in his hand. Without raising his head, he said, "welcome back Sabo, I heard that your mission was successful."

Sabo, always wondered if their esteemed leader had eyes everywhere on his body because nobody ever seemed to be able to surprise him, then again, not only nobody but literally nothing that happened anywhere could seem to surprise or rattle Dragon.

"Yes, we got everything we wanted without much of trouble."

"Oh, that's not what I heard."

Well, they did have some unexpected encounters and hiccups, but it ended just fine and that was what mattered (why nobody seemed to think like him, Sabo didn't know?)

"You asked for me?"

Dragon finally looked at him, giving him a sternly amused look telling him that he knew that Sabo was trying to change the subject and he would play along for now but the subject was far from been over.

"Yes."

And then he looked back at the papers in his hand thoughtfully, and added nothing.

Sabo stayed in his place, waiting quietly.

Everyone that worked with Dragon knew, he would tell you what was needed to be done when he was ready and sure.

There was sudden knock on the door.

Dragon didn't raise his head. If someone who didn't know him was watching he might think Dragon was so immersed in his head that he didn't hear but Sabo knew better.

After few seconds Dragon said, "Enter."

The door was opened by Terry from the communication division, and without taking one step in and ignoring Sabo completely, he said "a call from our men in South Blue."

Dragon let the papers in his hand slide back to the desk and rose to take the Den Den Mushi from Terry's hand, who left immediately after.

There was a White Den Den Mushi attached to the main one meaning it was definitely an important call that no one should be able to intercept.

Dragon opened the door to his private balcony and without turning he said, "I will be back."

Sabo didn't have time to answer before the door was slammed shut and he was left all alone in the room.

Sabo stared at the door for two full minutes before he decided it was safe and moved closer to the desk to check the papers that Dragon was staring thoughtfully at.

On top of the papers there was a wanted poster, Sabo frowned, strange.

_Why would this interest Dragon._

The poster didn't seem that different from any other poster Sabo had seen before.

A standard picture and below it written 'wanted dead or alive' and the bounty, 20 million Beli, it wasn't even that high of a bounty.

Sabo focused on the name and the information written in small letters.

The name was Monkey D. Luffy and he was from East Blue, then it was considered a high bounty to that region.

East Blue, his supposed home that he couldn't remember.

Sabo looked closely at the picture, Monkey D. Luffy was young, quite so to lead such notorious life.

He was smiling happily which was a bit weird for a wanted person but not that unusual, pirates were notorious for being weird.

But the smile itself caught Sabo's attention, it seemed unnatural for someone to have a smile that big, it seemed to stretch his face, no one should be able to smile like that, it wasn't humanly possible.

Yet in the eyes of his mind he could see an even a wider one. A glimpse of vision of an even bigger smile and jovial laugh to accompany it, but it was gone before he could grasp it.

_A dream, a memory?_

It didn't matter, he shook his head slightly bringing himself back to stare objectively at the wanted poster.

Staring at the name again.

Monkey D. Luffy.

Hmmm...

Wasn't Monkey D….. Monkey D. Garp's surname, the vice admiral? The one to catch the pirate king?

And didn't Dragon have some issue with him? He looked at the door which Dragon disappeared behind, trying to see through it to the mind of their leader.

Sabo only knew anything because he heard a snippet of Den Den Mushi conversation that he most definitely shouldn't have a bit more than two months ago. He was sneaking into the library below this floor to put his report in the pile before Koala found out that he forgot to hand something in again, to hear their leader speaking with someone. He couldn't hear the words, only voices, and neither of the voices were happy. Sabo got curious and moved to the edge of the balcony trying to hear and see better without letting himself be found out. He was just in time to hear someone from the other end of the call shouting 'vice admiral Garp' before the call was terminated. Sabo ignored the phantom shiver running down his back at hearing the name then and now, it was probably just the weather, Baltigo's winter was extremely cold.

Sabo had even glimpsed the Den Den Mushi that Dragon used to speak with the vice admiral, it had a white one attached to it. Was the vice admiral an informant? Was it even possible for someone from his calibre to work with the most dangerous man in the world?

Well, they were talking about Dragon here, if their was a person that could turn a Marine with a reputation like Garp into an informant, it would only be Dragon.

He looked back at the smiling boy in the picture, and wondered what role he played in all of this?

He sighed inwardly.

It wasn't like he could ask Dragon straight out about any of this.

"You should look at the poster behind it too."

Sabo froze and forced himself to relax before turning to face Dragon, who was leaning comfortably against the closed door.

Sabo hadn't heard him coming in. Who knew how long he was observing him before he let Sabo know that he was there?

Dragon raised an eyebrow, and Sabo turned back obediently and moved Luffy D. Monkey's poster, to see another poster hidden behind it.

A teenaged girl this time, she had dark red hair tied in ponytail. Marcy, wanted dead or alive, 15 million Beli, also from East Blue. Sabo couldn't help but relax as he saw the look of utter disdain in her face in direct contrast to the smiling boy beside her. She most definitely wasn't a happy camper.

"Those two are your next mission," Dragon was now standing beside him, Sabo didn't flinch but it was close call.

Sabo considered if he should ask and in the end he decided to hell with it.

He gestured in his hand to the boy's poster and asked

"Any relationship to vice admiral Garp?"

Sabo was watching Dragon closely but his face didn't change at all and neither his voice when he answered.

"His grandson."

This was getting more and more interesting thought Sabo.

"A pirate? Is he in his rebellious stage?" wondered Sabo amusedly.

"Wasn't he trained from young age, more like brainwashed to become the best obedient marine there is." He was eyeing the smiling boy with new kind of respect.

Dragon didn't react at all the whole monologue.

"Never judge a book by its cover."

Sabo stopped, that was right, he knew that, _then why was he thinking like this?_

"Of course, but one would assume that …." he trailed off, straightened himself up and asked like the rebel he aspired to be.

"What do you need me to do?"

…

..

.

XXXXX

.

..

...

Why can't anything ever go their way, no, _her way._

Marcy just wanted to, for once, _once_ , eat her fill, sleep her fill, have a damn shower with boiling hot water, she did not even care that she would be red all over and not have to worry about what in the _Four Blues_ and the holy _One Piece_ had Luffy done now?

Speaking of the trouble magnet.

"Luffy, you better stay close, we shouldn't ….."

Marcy turned around to make sure that Luffy understood how important for them to stay together and move quietly (eye contact and repeating in different words was the best way to get your message across to the airhead. Basically force feed him what you want him to do or threaten his precious meat, whatever worked!) to find nothing.

No Luffy.

No, no, no, no, no…..

No.

Dammit.

She looked frantically around, up trees and under bushes, Luffy was nowhere to be seen.

"Luffy," she called several times, her voice getting louder and more panicky with each call.

No, NO, dammit, why the worst thing have to happen at the worst time. _Always._

They were cursed!

No, **she was cursed** , her idiotic adorable brother was having the time of his damn life while she suffered and she knew why!

Because she was too smart for her own damn good.

Now as she was looking around in the bushes and the tree branches for the rubber moron her head conjuring scenarios of what could have happened (got distracted by a tree's fruit, picked some cool flowers to eat, playing with cool insects, found the poor animal that was to become his dinner, or the _'still'_ poor animal that was trying to chew her rubber idiot of a brother (she didn't envy them for the stomachache), or to being found by whoever was looking for them this time ...) and what she would have to do to get her brother from each one of those.

She was going to find the best shaman …. _She would_ to expel the bad luck cloud that was always hanging in the air around her.

Marcy was calling Luffy's name frantically as she ran toward where they landed, stopping every few seconds to search. Her heart was beating faster with every minute passing with no sign of the troublemaker.

If their pursuers hadn't found Luffy, they would definitely find her by how loud she was being, but she didn't care she wanted her brother back.

Of all the times to disappear, Oh Luffy.

Marcy, forced herself to stop, this was not working, she needed to think for second.

Relax.

Inhale, wait and exhale, repeat.

_Ammmmm.._

There was strange smell in the air.

Marcy sniffed around.

It was faint.

But it was there.

Strange.

It smelt like some kind of food being cooked.

Shit!

She knew were Luffy was.

Luffy's food radar at work.

God dammit.

She sighed, all she had to do follow the smell and then assess the situation.

She didn't have quite as good nose as Luffy, but she could still do it.

She needed to hurry, it probably was their pursuers.

Typical Luffy making their pursuers' job easier. Let's just go find them Instead, Marcy shook her head what was she expecting, seriously.

_Why was putting leash on him a bad idea again?_

She was running toward the direction the smell was wafting from.

The smell was getting stronger.

She ran between thick trees and almost tripped over one of their protruding roots, she get her balance back and continued moving, ignoring the low branches and the vines hanging from the trees that were scratching her face.

She stopped when the smell got stronger and moved as quietly as she could while crouching down, she couldn't hear anything.

She hid behind a tree close to the clearing and peeked from behind the lower branches.

There was a hasty built camp and fire going with pot above it where the smell was wafting from. She looked around trying to assess the situation, there were several colorful bags laying around in disarray, definitely their pursuers, but there was no one around as far as she could see or hear.

She heard a vague noise, and got out of her hiding place to investigate it closely, _and there he was_ , head inside a green bag eating, snacking to his heart's content.

"Luffy," she called loudly coming completely out of her hiding place.

Luffy startled, took his head out with a bit of struggle, and looked at her and said still munching away.

"Fjdayh hmfdsf dghge oi?"

"To where did **I** disappear to?" She asked indignantly, both her hands coming to stay on her hips.

He nodded while continuing to stuff his mouth with more food.

She sighed, rubbing the back of her head violently.

_He was here and that was what mattered._

Marcy looked around her examining the place with critical eye.

Wherever the camp _makers_ went, they could come back any second.

Maybe they were lucky, after all.

"Luffy, finish eating now and take those two or three bags beside you."

They needed supplies to survive and buy time until she was able to devise plan, how to stea… get their ship back.

"Hurry up," Marcy demanded.

It probably the tone of her voice that made Luffy swallow the green bag whole, and he stood abruptly up rubbing his stomach, cackling all the while.

"Hurry up, before anyone comes back!" She repeated while examining the inside of the bags (her poor bag was lost forever, those bastards probably took her _bag,_ payback was a B**ch).

_It was the morons' fault for not leaving a guard behind._

Luffy nodded while still chewing and began collecting the bags that they attended to borrow and never return.

Luffy was carrying almost all of them, slung across his back and arms, the moron, well, it didn't matter they would check them and take what they needed.

"That's enough, hurry," she told him while carrying two bags in each hand.

"We will go this way," she called to Luffy gesturing to him the path they would take. Luffy nodded, and followed her lead.

_It would be much safer if he was running in front of her._

"Luff..."

..

"...where those F**king br..."

_Dammit, lucky her ass._

She stopped abruptly making Luffy hurl himself forward trying to get between her and the newcomers, almost colliding with her in the process, Marcy took several steps back. Luffy tried to do the same and tripped losing his balance and fell on his butt, the bags falling on him and around him in disarray.

She was staring at three people who were staring back at them, they had startled expressions on their faces.

Marcy could understand, the people you were searching desperately for came to find you.

_Dammit, just a little bit more and they would have made it._

She wasn't leaving those bags behind. No way.

_They were hers._

They were only three, the other yet to return (assuming by the number of the bags), this was their best chance to escape with the goods.

"Luffy, take the bags and run."

She yelled, letting the bags slide from her hands, intending in taking out the person closer to her first.

"Ace ..." one of them shouted, she stopped.

The one that screamed, standing in the middle, had both his hands covering his mouth, no, _his nose._

_HUH_

The other two had their hands hovering around their baby parts.

Marcy snorted inwardly, _wimps_ , that won't help them one bit. They were wide open.

More importantly, did he say what she thought he said.

Marcy opened her mouth to demand an explanation.

"Are you friends of Ace?" Luffy asked, he was already comfortable on the ground (using bags to support his back) and had opened a chips bag from one of the borrowed bags and was munching away while waiting for an answer.

"Yes!"

"No!"

"Sort of."

They get three different answers.

She took several steps back, dragging the bags with her. _Hers_.

"Explain," she demanded.

They were all looking at each other, begging the other to take the lead, Marcy mused watching their scared and unsure faces.

_She needed information. Who were they facing here. Who was after them this time and what the heck they wanted_ _._

She put her hand on her waist and raised her eyebrow.

The one to cover his nose cleared his throat and stepped closer, man two.

"Nope," Marcy shook her finger at him.

"You only need your mouth to answer. All of you stay where you are."

He obediently took step back, and stayed quiet, _awaiting orders,_ she snorted inwardly. The other two also took several steps back.

At least they learnt fast.

"Now, you may explain."

BOOM

They were all startled, jumping to different heights, Marcy gave Luffy unimpressed look.

Luffy had popped the empty chips bag after filling it with air, she guessed.

"Sorry," he said while laughing wholeheartedly, and taking new chips bag out and opening it.

The man cleared his throat again and squeaked, "We were sent to find you and bring you to your brother."

"Sent by who?"

"Pops."

"Who is pops?" She asked evenly, her left eye began to twitch.

_She was taking back the hope that they could learn._

"Whitebeard."

Shit, the news of Ace attacking him, was true, that _moron-idiot-fool_.

_UGEHHH..._

Wait, why would he send people to find them, they were nobodies.

How did he know about them, Ace would die before telling an enemy (or even friends) about them.

Even her, she needed to threaten him with bloody harm then cajole him, and then play on his guilt and insecurities (really, he had too many) to even have him open his mouth. The moron was THE idiot in the idiocy competition. He and Luffy were tied for the first place for now, shitty Garp close second, she was keeping score.

"What's Ace's relationship to Whitebeard?"

"Son."

" _HUH_ ," she yelled.

The men took several steps back, the one who spoke hastily explained.

"The crew and his allies call him pops instead of captain."

Ace joined another crew? Disbanded the Spade?

What in the …

She tried to imagine it from different prescriptive.

Ace joined crew where he would call someone else captain, no, not even that, but _pops_ at that.

Ace!

Ace, _daddy-complex gonna prove my own existence by beating the shit out of everyone, that Ace_ called someone **pops**.

Marcy snorted, forced herself to stop, tried to take a breath.

No use. _She lost it._

She began laughing hysterically. _That was precious._

"Good one," she gasped between fit of uncontrollable laughter.

Luffy was staring at them blankly.

"Ace joined _bread's_ crew?"

"Whitebeard's crew," they all corrected with a bit of anger coloring their voices. _So they were not that spineless, at least when it come to their precious allies._

"Why? Was he hungry?" Luffy asked confused before getting back to munching.

Marcy, who was just about to recover from her fit of laughter, wheezed and burst into new one, clutching her stomach and stomping the ground while tears rolled down her face.

The three pirates were staring open mouthed, not sure what they should do with themselves, not understanding the origin of the question and what brought her reaction.

Marcy felt a bit of tiny sympathy for them in her ice cold heart. She could certainly relate. She even considered telling them, that yes, seriously, he had no idea who Whitebeard was, and even if they explained it wouldn't change anything, _Bread it was_.

She took a deep breath, trying to control her breathing, she didn't remember the last time when she laughed like this, this was one really good joke.

"Now, would you please explain what is really going on!" Marcy demanded going for the stern voice that always made Ace cringe. Luffy was immune after these three months they _journeyed_ together, she had to use it a _lot_.

Man two spluttered, waving his hands trying to stress that he was telling the truth.

"No, I am not lying or joking with you. We are one of Whitebeard allies and he called our captain to look for you because your brother was really worried, you weren't supposed to set sail yet." He was breathing hard by the time he finished.

Not supposed to sail yet!

_Another point to his ridiculous story._

She wondered, she had the situation under control for now so she would play along because more information was needed before she could decide.

"Let's say I believe that Ace sent you via _whitebeard_ to look for us," the three nodded along.

"What did he tell you about us?"

They were looking at her clearly confused, "his instructions about how to approach us?"

"Oh, not touch the boy's hat," he said, starting to count the instructions on his fingers as he said them

_Ok, another point for them._

"And…," the other guy beside him (man one) nudged him with his elbow and shook his head at him, indicating for him to stop, he was looking at her from the corner of his eye in fear.

_Oh, interesting, she could definitely use this._

Marcy narrowed her eyes.

"Yes?" she said coldly.

The man swallowed and said.

"And… not to call you … small," he paused and closing his eyes whispered "tomato."

Both her eyes twitched, she bit her lip to stop herself from _**biting his head off**_ _._

_She was the one that asked_.

She felt Luffy's eyes pour into her, he had stopped eating and was waiting for her usual _temperamental_ response.

She considered things carefully, only someone that know them well, would know all of this.

But that didn't mean it was Ace, it might be shitty Garp.

Even thought it would really surprise the shit out of her if he _stooped_ into using such tricks. _Marines and justice and the blah blah blah didn't use underhanded tricks._

And they looked like pirates, Garp using pirates, she would believe that he used a trick before she believed that.

"You really should _listen to_ his advice," she intoned coldly.

They all nodded enthusiastically, their mouths tightly shut.

"Oh!" Exclaimed the _speaker_ of the group, man two.

"What?" She demanded, she was trying to decided what their next step should be, _what now?_

"We were supposed to call him, so you could speak with him and prove that we are not lying and mean you no harm."

"You couldn't say that from the beginning?" Grumbled Marcy loudly.

That would be proof she might even believe.

"Speaking with Ace.. YAY," Luffy cheered, he was on his seventh bag of chips, some jerked meat was on the side and several opened cans of food was surrounding him, olives, tuna, pumpkin.

Marcy sighed. He was having a feast while she did all the work, as per usual.

The man was fidgeting in front of her.

"Ahmmm."

"Yes?" she snapped.

"The Den Den Mushi is in the bag," he said hesitantly.

_Of course it's in bag. Why wouldn't it be in the bag? Because that would be too easy and her luck hated her._

"Ok, only you can move closer." She gestured for him to come closer, there was no deity that could move Luffy from his feast, she would keep watch.

"Stop," she said after a second, eyeing him from top to bottom.

Man two was about to take his first step, froze, looking at her in panic.

"Any weapons you have put on the ground." She ordered.

Not only him, the other two obeyed. _Really good mentality,_ she approved.

After he finished, he moved closer.

"You."

He froze again, she could see his thoughts clearly in his face, _what did I do now?_

"What's your name?" she demanded, she couldn't keep calling them man one, man two and, man three in her head.

"Chao," He said his name carefully, like he was afraid to offend her somehow by saying his own name.

"Hurry up, _Chao_ ," she intoned.

Chao moved closer, eyeing her from the corner of his eyes in wary ( _good_ ), and began moving the bags, seemingly looking for a specific one, he looked for several minutes, then stood up and looked around the clearing.

"Is there something the matter, _Chao,_ " Marcy asked her hands crossed in front of her.

She was getting impatient, the others might return which would mean her dominant position could change and she would not have the upper hand anymore. Of course, if they were telling the truth, she would always have it.

"Emm, I can't seem to find it."

"What do you…." She yelled loudly, _was it actually a trick to make them drop their guard or._.

_Oh._

Oh.

"Let me hazard a guess... the bag was green?"

"Yes, do you know where it is?" He asked excitedly.

Oh, _Oh_ , Marcy knew where it was, she thought while eyeing Luffy's inflated stomach.

She sighed, her shoulders slumped, of course Luffy would swallow the one bag that mattered.

_Her life was comedic tragedy._

Luffy hiccuped, belched and then hiccuped again.

No.

It was not a hiccup.

" _purupurupuru….purupurupuru….purupurupuru…"_

Something muffled was ringing from inside Luffy's stomach.

_I give you one guess what it is_ , Marcy thought sarcastically.

Chao's eyes were blinking rapidly, having seemingly connected the dots and turned to look at Marcy with wide opened eyes begging her to deny it.

Marcy, felt a twinge of pity for him, she shook her head while saying, "Yes, he swallowed _it_."

Sounds of snorts and snickers, made her turn to look behind, the two there tried to straighten up and stop snickering without much success.

Marcy ignored the duo in the back, and turned to see what Luffy would do now.

Luffy continuation hiccups and belches made it hard for him to eat _in peace_.

She could see his eyes narrow more with every hiccup.

He stopped eating, and opened his mouth widely using his hand to stretch it, and used the other one to search and then take out the Den Den Mushi from inside of his belly.

The snorting couple behind her were making gagging and choking noises now.

She was already immune to Luffy's _eating_ antics but even she felt her appetite weaning.

Luffy returned to eating like nothing had happened. He stretched his hand to get hold of the hot pot on the fireplace which had some kind of soup in it.

Chao beside her closed his mouth swallowed, and moved closer to examine the Den Den Mushi covered in Luffy's spit and saliva, the poor thing seemed to be a bit chewed. _He, like her needed intensive therapy._

"I assume you have another Den Den Mushi somewhere," She finally asked, she needed to make sure that this was true or false, and if she learned anything from hanging with the D duo of dummies (she was 99 percent sure that D in their name was warning so people would know that they were dealing with extremely Dumb people) that assuming was the mother of all f**kups.

"On the ship," he muttered, his eyes moving from the Den Den Mushi to Luffy with unconcealed horror.

"How many people are here?"

He stared at her uncomprehending.

_It was horrible, but get grip already, move along! Seriously, the man was supposed to be a pirate._

"That were sent to find us."

She was always surrounded with idiots.

It made her wonder if maybe unconsciously she surrounded herself with the _not so bright_ to feel superior, but shrugged the thought, she couldn't expect others to be as smart as her and idiocy had it _charms_.

...

Sometimes.

Maybe.

In some very rare cases.

Well.

_When her cute brother was involved._

Ace was not cute at all.

"12," he finally revealed.

"You two go find them and bring him here," she ordered.

The two scrambled to obey.

She needed their path to stay open. If she and Luffy needed to run, it was better to have them all in one place, out of their way.

It took them a little bit more than half an hour, to collect all of them.

"Listen up, that how it is going to be."

_My way is the only way_. Give no options.

She told the twelve pirates in front of her, who were standing beside each other in row staring quietly at them.

"I want you all to put all your weapons in the empty bags here." She gestured at several empty bags while she spoke (Luffy's proud work!)

One of the pirates actually raised his hand, if they were going to be polite, then so could she. She could at least try to be _civil_.

"Yes?"

"What if we were attacked?"

"By whom?" She asked with a raised eyebrow, trying to keep the _civil_ tone.

He shrugged, while his mates nudged and snickered at his expense.

"You are grown men, and pirates to _boot_ , you could handle anything, _right_?"

None of them disagreed, she get several nods and snorts. _Ahh vanity_.

It was always about how to pose the question (except when speaking with her brothers, they were too …. to listen, so whatever you said didn't matter!).

"The two of you would carry the bags," she singled at the sorting-choking duo.

"You would all move 20 paces in front of us, we will follow you slowly from behind."

Her motto was to never take unnecessary chances, not that it mattered when Luffy was involved (just mentioning _Luffy_ and _logic_ in the same sentence would bring a disaster), but she at least should stay vigilant.

The pirates all looked at each other with clear uncertainty, debating silently _what should they do_ until one of them shrugged, and began pulling his weapons and putting them in the bag nearer to him, the other followed his example.

Luffy stood up yawning, he finished everything edible and _not so edible_ that was in the clearing.

Marcy looked at the Den Den Mushi laying on the ground and sighed in wariness.

She really needed to get intensive therapy after this, (and a damn good shaman) and she knew just the person to pay for it.

.

..

...

XXXXX

...

..

.

They finally arrived back to the town when it was nearing dusk, the journey had been uneventful.

Chao had volunteered to go to the ship to prepare for their arrival, making sure that everyone's weapons were sorted away in bags, and to make sure that everyone kept their distance when they arrived.

She took several minutes to consider this, and then shrugged, it didn't matter if they knew they were coming. She and Luffy were stepping into the lion's den or a safe harbor, she was not sure she believed any of this yet, but she would know soon enough (and Luffy demanded more food, MEAT, the poor guy opened his mouth, probably to ask: 'you are hungry again? You ate five days supplies for 12 people in one go, and you're hungry again', but thought better of it, and only nodded.)

Luffy was untypically quiet and stayed close to her side, if she didn't know better, she would think he was scared.

Maybe he was _scared_ ...for her, _oh the adorable moron_.

They crossed the harbor and were nearing their destination.

Marcy couldn't help but feel tense and a bit of hopefulness and excitement. She forced those feelings down. She needed to keep her wits about her.

The ship was quite impressive in its size and with the equipment she saw on its deck. She saw Luffy eyeing the pirate flag with interest, probably considering (dreaming about) his own future flag.

Marcy made them all go first, she heard muttering, "should not be ladies first," his friend snickered and murmured back "we are the _ladies_ here," to the amusement of the whole group, they were all taking everything with stride. Marcy still didn't have grasp about what kind of pirates they were.

Luffy climbed and she followed him the deck was wide open, and she looked around, it seemed the whole crew was standing or leaning against the rail on the other side of them, staring at them, none of them had any visible weapon on their body.

Someone cleared his throat.

"I am Dustin the first mate of the A.O crew. Our captain is calling the Moby Dick, trying to get Ace on the line and it should be only few minutes."

Luffy was moving around, touching things and inspecting the ship, yet he didn't move more than few steps from her (what she had drilled in his head in their way here had seemed somehow to have _miraculously_ stuck).

Marcy nodded eyeing him, he looked vaguely familiar and he was standing funny, he kept moving the soles of his feet.

_Oh, good going Marcy_ , you attacked the first mate of the crew, well, at least he was not the captain.

A vaguely familiar tall man with a long, square shaped face, hollow eyes under prominent eyebrows, and greenish long wavy hair come to view, he was holding a Den Den Mushi close to his mouth and was speaking urgently to it, concealing his lower face from her view. The yellow and brown striped bandanna and the tricorn over his captain's hat was moving with every tilt of his head, she looked at him more closely as he stopped speaking.

Oh, _great job Marcy, really excellent_ , she felt like she should pat herself on the shoulder, you broke the captain's nose.

She sighed inwardly, _why, just why?_

The person who she supposed was the captain, stopped beside his first mate and cleared his throat, speaking clearly even with the _nose_ injury.

"I am A.O, the captain of this ship," he paused.

Marcy nodded encouraging him to get with it.

He coughed.

"Ehmm.. We can't seem to be able to get Ace on the line right now." He muttered, he didn't seem to believe what he was saying himself.

Marcy sighed inwardly. When things were too good to be true, then they were _not true_.

"Luffy," she called eyeing them considering from where the pirates might attack them, "we're leaving."

Luffy was by her side glaring at his surroundings.

"Wait!" Someone shouted, it was the captain.

Marcy looked at him, he was muttering under his breath and loudly said, "They want to speak with you."

He put the Den Den Mushi in the wooden floor in front of him, Marcy was considering what to do, _who were_ _ **they**_ _to begin with_ when Luffy stretched his hand grabbing the Den Den Mushi and brought him back to himself.

" _Hellllloooo_ , I am Luffy D. Monkey, I am gonna be the pirate king." He yelled out.

Marcy cringed at the loud tone. She could only glimpse the stunned faces and people rubbing their ears in front of her before she turned her full attention to the Den Den Mushi in time to hear the reply to Luffy's declaration.

"Hello Luffy, nice to meet ya, yoi."

The voice answered evenly, not a bit bothered by Luffy's loudness or his declaration. The Den Den Mushi actually had a lazy demeanor, it was _unsettling_.

"Are you Ace's friend?" Luffy demanded staring the Den Den Mushi in question.

"I am, yoi. Can you let me speak with your sister please?"

"I am listening." She let the fact she was listening in be known.

"Marcy, right?"

He didn't wait for reply and continued, "Ace had a narcolepsy attack, yoi, and we can't seem to wake him up." Marco explained straight away.

Marcy gnawed on her lips. She wanted to say that, seriously, just when we happened to call, Ace had an attack, _nice one_. But with how things were going, it would be weirder if he hadn't. It somehow made the whole thing more believable.

Luffy laughed joyfully, "That is so Ace, why aren't you drawing on his face?"

Marcy huffed in exasperation, leave it to Luffy to worry about the _important_ stuff.

"Don't worry, we did!" some other voice shouted cheerfully.

"It is a masterpiece!" another voice added, guffawing.

"Oi, Thatch, I am speaking, yoi, ga…."

There was the sound of clashes, thumps and muffled shouts from the other side.

"Sorry about that, yoi. I am Marco, by the way."

Marco, she knew this name, the first mate of the Whitebeard fleet and he said he was Ace's friend.

"Are you okay? Ace was really worried about you, he said that you made promise not to set sail until you reached seventeen."

Luffy had the disappointed and ashamed look again, he looked like he was going to burst crying, it didn't matter how many times she explained, he stil...

She put her arm around his shoulder and squeezed.

"We are fine, things happened and we didn't have much of choice." She answered vaguely.

"That's what he thought, the guys with you now are our allies, they would keep you safe."

"Hmmm…" Marcy hummed, indicating she heard, not that she believed.

"Anyway…

There was commotion again, they could clearly hear the noise from the other side, several loud bangs and indistinguishable shouts.

"Luffy and Marcy, I am Thach, I am Ace's best friend in the whole world, I am chef of the crew." Someone cheerfully announced, the one who had won the Den Den Mushi war (the Den Den Mushi was shining with glee now), she assumed.

_Best friend_ , she snorted inwardly. A really cheerful person that wasn't Luffy, very hard to believe.

"Hatchy, do you cook meat?" Luffy demanded excitedly.

"Why, of course! All the time! Grilled meat and those tiny delicious potatoes, pork ribs with cold sauce, meatballs with parmesan cheeses sauce, grilled brown sugar pork chops, ….."

Marcy ignored the annoyingly cheerful voice and eyed Luffy, he was salivating (and not metaphorically), his saliva began to slowly drop from his mouth while he was nodding along and repeating the words. Marcy moved away from him and turned to the staring crew, none of them seemed to know what to do with themselves except stare at the crazy show happening right in front of them. She felt she should demand money, she and Luffy were offering free entertainment. Maybe not money, _hmmm.._

She looked at the captain and demanded, "Food."

He nodded and called for Chao.

"Chao is already in the kitchen, making sure they hurry up with the food." Someone answered, he paused looking at Luffy's state and added, "I will go check on their process," and went running into the inside of the ship.

That was what so good about Luffy's straightforward behavior, no need to explain, well except when he did something extremely stupid that made sense only to him and then he somehow explained to her (she was expert on idiot language) and she didn't bother to try to explain (cause it didn't make sense).

Luffy and _Hatchy_ were still speaking, Luffy had found his _soulmate_ , another cheerful idiot with empty head full of food.

"... beef stew with small carrots and potatoes and seasoned with bit of rosemary and parsley, and my favorite hamburger steaks smothered in gravy and onions, very easy to make the secret is the…"

Marcy toned him down again, Luffy's mouth was waterfall of saliva, how a body could generate that amount of saliva was beyond her but then again Luffy was not normal. She felt sorry for the poor sod that had to clean the pool of saliva that Luffy was creating.

" Food…." exclaimed Luffy suddenly…

Yes, Luffy you were speaking about food for the last … oh, the _real_ food had arrived, five people were carrying several huge trays full of different kind of food, mainly chunks of meat, and they put them in the middle of the deck.

Luffy wasted no time, letting the Den Den Mushi slide from his hand into the pool (Uhgg), jumping beside the feast and plopping down while gripping chunk of meat in each hand.

"Luffy, stop." She ordered using her _don't argue with me_ voice.

Luffy looked at her, the meat near his mouth, he was waiting patiently which was very unlike him, he should be pouting at least.

"Master chef," she said calling for the one with chef's hat.

"Please eat small bites from everything, before Luffy eat."

The man had an angry look understanding what she was implying, she couldn't care less, while others were looking in bewilderment and amusement, whispering around.

"As you remember Luffy, we talked about how to get even more food, you should at least let the one that prepared the food have several bites first…" she paused, letting Luffy _chew on_ her words.

Luffy was eyeing his food with sadness, sharing didn't come naturally to him.

"And you had already eat their food once without letting them eat first, the chef may refuse to make you more food in the future, _right_?"

Luffy was looking at the chef pathetically, his big eyes shimmering with tears. Luffy was good at getting what he wanted either by being _stubbornly_ stubborn or be staring at you with his big eyes until you conceded.

But she was no _amateur_.

She cleared her throat loudly, the chef turned to her. She glared at him, and began moving her leg, like she was kicking a ball, or maybe _balls_.

The chef swallowed several times, his eyes going to their first mate, who had grim look on his face, and cleared his throat.

Others around had either utterly amused looks or hands hovering near their baby parts.

"You're big sister is right. I need to taste the food before to make sure it is good, and after that you can eat all you want, if you do that I promise to cook more for you."

Luffy cheered and grabbed random plate and pushed it close to the chef face for him to taste, one after the other.

The chef seemed overwhelmed, but obediently eat small bites of each plate that was presented to him.

"Isn't this too much food?" Asked the captain to no one in particular.

Marcy snorted and said no more when everyone looked at her for clarification.

Chao cleared his throat.

"He ate all the food we took with us to the hills, he seems to have a huge appetite."

"That was midday snack.." she corrected loudly, startling them even before they understood the meaning of her words.

_Huge appetite_ , if by huge they meant the four blues, then maybe.

"More like black hole if you ask me..." muttered Marcy to herself looking at the Den Den Mushi wondering how to get it.

Someone cleared his mouth, it was man one and he had several huge towels in his hand.

Marcy took several steps to the side, and gestured for him to go ahead.

He put the towels on the affected area and took the Den Den Mushi, carefully and cleaned it with another towel, it had a really strong smell of disinfectants.

He then offered it to her, she took it reluctantly and put on the floor far from the pool.

"Emm.."

_What was his name again..Hatr.. Hact.._

"Hey little sister Marcy…"

"Shut up," she growled immediately.

"What.. What did I..."

"Did I gave permission to speak to me?"

"No," He mumbled dejectedly, wallowing in states of dying anguish. She can see the Den Den Mushi losing its _sparkle_.

"How close do you think we are to give me a nickname?"

"It wasn't a nickname..." he whined pathetically. She had a kicked puppy's picture stuck in her head, she ignored it and him and demanded.

"Put the _mature_ one back on the phone."

Snickers, laughs and jeers could be heard clearly around the _poor puppy_.

She heard someone yell, "She only needed to speak with you for less than two words to figure that you are a clown, way to go _Hatchy_!"

"Mature… hey, I will have you know that I am 34 and the commander …"

His speech was cut short, some more commotion was heard with more snickers and muffled shouts.

"I apologize, yoi. I wish I could tell you he was dropped on the head as baby but I am pretty sure he was born with idiocy in his blood."

Marcy found herself saying while sighing, "Believe me I understand, having to grow with _two_."

That brought roars of laughter from both sides, Marcy was startled to realize that the people around her were clearly listening in with unconcealed glee, some of them sat down comfortably to enjoy the show, others were looking in different degree of awe and disgust at Luffy's eating form.

She like them stared at Luffy who had finished the _inspection_ and had begun attacking the food in vigor, the chef was on his way back into the kitchen to cook more for him, mumbling about their stocks and supplies.

"Ace…." Marco began saying, to be cut off once again.

She heard another disturbance, did they ever stop? What the hell kind of crew were they. At least those in front her seemed disciplined.

She heard shouts and cheers, _what.._

"They found them, where are they? Did you call them? Are they okay?"

She knew that voice, she dreamed about hearing it for the last three months.

Now that she heard it, she couldn't believe it.

That moron, making them worry.

It was Ace's voice, no doubt about it.

She felt her legs became shaky, she made her legs bend and sat down.

She didn't notice what was said but the next thing she heard.

"Luffy, Marcy. Are you there? Are you okay? Any injuries, what the hell happened?.."

" **Ace**!" Luffy shouted, he was already near her again, she blinked looking at him.

"Hey Luffy…"

"Ace, your friends are awesome, the food is so goood," he stopped to take bite from the chunk of meat in his hand and continued.

"I understand now why you joined _bread's_ crew, _shishishishishi_."

"Bread," she heard mumbles of disbelief and someone bellowed out loud laughter.

"Typical Luffy!" Ace murmured.

"Luffy.." Marcy began to be cut off.

"Marcy, we finally found Ace," he beamed at her, eyes sparkling.

"Yeah, but we have to make sure it is really Ace first!"

"Ehh, but it is Ace." Mumbled Luffy in confusion.

_How was she going to explain this in words he would understand._

"Do you remember the farmer guy."

Luffy was making a confused face.

"With the hat that looked like purple seagull."

"Yeah, Cool hat," Luffy nodded.

Only Luffy would think that _abomination_ not only should exist, but was cool.

"He promised us meat if we helped him out..." Luffy was nodding along, "... but in the end the meat that he gave us was _not meat_ , it looked like meat but it was cabbage."

"Yeah, the meany! Should have beaten him up," Luffy muttered his eyes narrowing. Trying to make the connection.

"Oh, so this is not meat Ace but cabbage Ace!"

"Cabbage Ace, you meany," he shouted into the Den Den Mushi.

"I want meat Ace." Demanded Luffy, waiting for the Den Den Mushi to disappear and to Ace in the flesh to appear.

"I am not," Ace spluttered.

"Cabbage Ace," laughter was resounding from the watching and the listening pirates.

"Which one you aren't? yoi. The cabbage or the meany. I am finding it hard to tell apart."

Marcy ignored their immature antics and concentrated on Luffy.

"That's what I will do. I am going to check if it is Meat Ace or cabbage Ace, I need to _chew_ it a bit to figure it out."

Luffy nodded and gone back to where the feast was served in his honor, his form a bit slumped.

She was _just_ doing the _mature_ thing and making sure it was really Ace.

"Marcy," Ace growled. _How cute._

"Resident?"

Ace sighed, muttering under his breath about strong headed brats and their games.

"Foosha Village and it forest, Dawn Island, Goa Kingdom, East Blue," he played along.

"Guradins?"

"I wouldn't call any of them g _uardians_ , neither would you. Shitty Gramps and Dadan are not the _guardian_ types."

Indeed they weren't, _it was a deliberately loaded question_.

"Birthday?"

"Whose?"

"Mine."

"Fifth of September."

"Ace's?"

" **My** birthday is in the January first."

"Luffy's?"

"Fifth.."

"Fifth of May" shouted Luffy, cutting him off.

"Right Luffy, but we are asking cabbage Ace to see if he is meaty Ace."

He nodded, smiling.

"What we did in the last birthday for Luffy?" _Before you left_ was left unsaid.

This time Ace didn't even have the time to open his mouth.

"Cbhjtdsfhnjfd sfbutf ngfv and Ace let me eat three whole crocos, and Marcy gave me huge chocolate cake…. was really, really good, cfff afsd u bjhjid hgcoss jfved?"

Marcy sighed, she knew better then to ask question that Luffy knew the answer to and was directly about him.

"Took you less than half an hour to finish it, didn't leave anything to us." muttered Ace who was then bombard with questions.

"How big of eater is your brother?"

"He can't be worse than you…"

Ace snorted, "He is _way_ worse."

"Shit… we are going to die of starvation if he join too," someone shouted in dismay.

She paid no mind to the doom-discussion-teasing happening in the other side and turned to the chef, who was already back with more food.

"Master chef, he is asking if you have crocodile meat."

Luffy was nodding along with her words.

"Ahh, don't think so, but I will check the meat supplies just to be sure."

"You understand what he said?" Someone shouted outrageously.

"Of course, I speak Lueatnguage." She said flippantly.

"What?"

"HUH!"

"Llulang..."

"What did she just say .."

"Never heard of such language."

"Lueatnguage, Luffy eating language," she heard Ace explain, the realization that she was actually really speaking with Ace was sinking in, the more she spoke with him.

"As I said, I speak _Lueatnguage_ , I am an expert!" she said a bit boastful.

It wasn't easy to master, it took her several years of intensive study of Luffy eating patterns and habits, she still sometimes confused, 'I am thirsty give me water' with the 'I am choking help me'.

"...Big headed…" Ace muttered.

_Oh, it was Ace, alright. Only he had hypocrisy down to art form. The little cocky shit._

"Who was Ace's first crush?"

Ace spluttered, "What? I don't have crush."

"Did I stutter? Who is Ace's first crush?"

"This is gold, where is the notebook?"

"We need to write this _shit_ down."

"I bought new one!"

"Write the cabbage one too!"

"Meaty Ace!"

"Let's chew him."

"Stop biting me!" Ace shouted in anger, she heard people screaming around him, she could only guess he beat the shit out of them or burned the chewers.

"He seems to have hard inedible meat as skin, yoi." Marco concluded the results of their experiment _that claimed several brave souls._

"I have no such thing." Ace continued to deny firmly but was downed by all the teasing and questions from the future victims-brave souls.

"What is a crush?" asked Luffy, taking in interest in the ongoing conversation.

"When you like someone," Marcy explained to him, ignoring the still going teasing war in the other side.

"Hmmm.. oh, friend," Luffy responded, between chews.

"No, you know like in romantic sense.." Marcy tried to make it clearer.

"Gigantic shells, cool, Ace why did you never show me ..." he shouted from his place at Ace.

_What was she thinking saying romantic to make it more easier to understand, she was being a moron._

"No, I said romantic sense.." she tried again while rubbing the back of her head.

"That's what I said, Gigant.." Luffy repeated again, with confused look at his face.

"Offtt… no, it is how you show affection...you know… when you hug someone or give comfort… you like to be around them..." she trailed off, trying to think of other examples to make it easier to grasp.

"Friend!" Luffy announced stubbornly.

"No, you share with them private moments and .." she trailed off again, not sure how to explain to her naive oblivious brother about this, dammit, this was not her job, it was Ace's job as the proud big brother (he most definitely was the one to explain the birds and the bees, not her, oh she intended to _listen_ and cackle like crazy as his tried to explain. She had been looking forward to it for _ages_ ).

"Hatchy!" Luffy grinningly said.

She heard Ace asking who was Hatchy.

"Hatchy is Thach's nickname, don't forget to write it to, yoi."

She had feeling she knew to where this was going, but just to be sure.

"Aammm, Hatchy is what.."

"Hatchy is Ace's crush!" Luffy announced in his cheerful loud voice.

Stunned silence welcomed his outrages claim. Marcy had to hold her breath as not to burst laughing.

"What? Why?" someone finally asked in dismay.

"He is Ace's best friend… crush means best friend." Luffy explained his conclusion proudly.

Marcy couldn't hold in any more, she burst out laughing, breaking the silence. Torrents of laughter and howling followed her outburst and gushes of teasing and mirth were poured on _Hatchy and cabbage._

"That's what you get for making grand announcements, _Hatchy_." someone loudly proclaimed, jeering at him.

Marcy sighed in bliss, _Luffy's logic was the best logic (in such cases!)_. She looked at him and decided on one last desperate try to explain _like_ and _crush_.

"No, not best friend. Do you remember Valentine's Day four years ago?"

"vase time?…"

"Valentine's Day," she repeated stressing every syllable, before muttering angrily at herself, "Why I am bothering!"

She tried to explain it in terms that Luffy would understand.

"The day you got a lot of chocolate for free."

"We always eat for free," Luffy answered confused.

_Not always, but then again when they had to pay she was the one that payed._

"When I made us a really big chocolate cake with a lot of cream, and Makino gave us some chocolate cookies and when we …"

"Stole the big basket with cool robots and dinosaurs! Yeah I remember!"

"They were stars and hearts," she mumbled to no one.

"It was so yummy!" Luffy continued as if he didn't hear.

"How many times I have to tell you. We don't steal, we just borrowed and are yet to return..."

"Borrowed, will never return."

"Luffy," she tried and paused, how can she spin this? He was saying the truth, but still she doesn't know how many trouble they would had evaded if only Luffy would lie this small white lie, no, would just keep quiet. But then he wouldn't be Luffy.

"It is already in my tummy, _shishishi._ "

"Why were we talking about chocolate again?" she tried to focus on the topic again.

Luffy shrugged, "Vilintiantt day."

"Yes! Remember the girl with shiny hair and colorful face that tried to give Ace chocolate."

"HUH, noooo…," Luffy's eyes were narrowed, he seemed like he was frowning and in the process of exerting a lot of effort on trying to remember.

"I mean, the poor girl had to gather a lot of courage and extra guts to come and present her chocolate to Ace, it was beautifully warped with rainbow bow on it and she was shaking all over and blushing so hard, and what did Ace do?"

"What?" several voices demanded, the loud volume of voices was equal in both sides of the call.

"Marcy, keep your mout.." Ace was shouting at her, but his voice was drowned by his _friends'_ demands to know.

"Tell us oh your majesty.."

"Hey stop interfering.."

Marcy was intending to enjoy every second.

"Why of course the most _Acey_ thing possible."

"Marcy, you bet…." Ace's voice was muffled, she can imagine several of his _friends_ were holding him down, trying to keep him _quietly restrained_.

"He glared, huffed and then ran away, leaving Luffy me and to pick the pieces of the poor girl broken heart."

Clacking and laughter filled the air. The pirates in front her were now laughing their head and ass off, those in Ace's side didn't seem to do any better. She stopped trying to decipher the emotions showing by the Den Den Mushi but with how fast it changed, it had stopped looking like face.

"Oh, I remember! She had a cool mask!" Luffy finally was able to remember something.

"Makeup," she murmured and everyone was still laughing. She saw someone choking on his spit from laughing so hard, the people beside him were laughingly smacking him in the back making it worse.

"She was nice! She gave me the chocolate instead of Ace."

"You mean you swallowed the whole thing without asking while she still had it in her hands. She was so stunned that she did not react for half an hour."

Marcy sighed in remembered misery, she was the one to collect the pieces, not that she wanted to, but the girl was the daughter of the big supplier for food, wood, clothes, anything really, and they needed to stay on good terms with these people. _She needed_ , her brothers didn't care or appreciate the easy comforts of life.

"Her heart was broken, she would probably have eaten the chocolate to console herself, but you happened!" Marcy said while waving her hand in Luffy's direction.

She blamed the two idiots, Dumb and Dumber (please, feel free to choose which of the two dummies fit which description more) for her troubles.

"Ace, you meany! You should have been her friend, she brought you food, she was good person."

The watcher and listeners dissolve into laughter and snickers fit while Ace was getting called a meany over and over again.

"You should be nicer to me, _all of you_ , I gave you food." Someone shouted loudly, his voice resounding, it was probably Hatchy.

Evoking more laughter and teasing, and calls of spoiled cry baby.

"Luffy lacks any common sense as usual!" Ace added amused after things calmed down a bit.

"Like you are any better...he had you, the _spectacular_ role model, for ten years!"

Things get heated up again, Ace was being roasted and mocked, and people shouting to write this shit down, it was _spectacular._

She looked around her, to see small numbers of pirates had moved closer to where she was sitting, she glared, they stepped back dragging the oblivious ones. One of them cleared his throat, moving forward and offered.

"Here, we found your bag."

_Her precious darling._

She swiftly stood up seized it from him, and opened it, everything was there, nothing touched. They even mended the tear.

"Thank you," she whispered then loudly said it again plopping down.

"Ace you are yet to answer, who is your firs..." someone from the other side demanded and was cut off.

She ignored their childish fight and examined the contains of her bag, she took out the newspaper, not that she needed it anymore.

They found him.

"Ace-dammit, that hurt, don't hit me on my precious hair, Marco."

HUH… why..

"Why are you cursing Ace if someone else hurt you?"

"No, I am not cursing him, I am using him to curse." The voice cheerfully explained it was Hatchy she thought.

"Ace, congratulations, you found someone that is stupider than you." she snarked.

Laughter and chuckles welcomed her statement. Those pirates were weird, everything was funny in their eyes, weren't they a Yonko's subordinates? Shouldn't they at least act _like_ they were mature, powerful people.

"Write that too, yoi."

"No, you don't understand," the voice denied, and after pause, he revealed _in the secret of the universe (42) voice_.

"Ace is a God."

"Really, _metaphysically or physically_?"

"Huh, what?"

"She means is he supernatural being or just plain handsome."

"God level handsome." Some other voice corrected, snickering.

"Of course Thatch thinks his crush is god level handsome." someone else added, his laughing voice can only be described as high pitched chortle.

"What did she say about romantic sense?"

"Oh, yeah, Hatchy go share private moment with the godly handsome god," someone singsong.

Too many voices, but they were fun bunch and anyone who made fun of Ace was okay in her book.

"Shouldn't it be with Acey handsome Ace."

Hatchy was trying to get himself out from the hole he dug himself in.

"No, he is god because you are a god..."

Without much success, what kind of stupid was this guy.

"I take it back, he is stupider than you and Luffy and shitty Garp combined when food is present."

Ace seemed to be having laughing fit with the image she drew, the others were laughing along. If they only knew the stupidity the three of them brought out of each other, they would be choking on air and tears from laughing so hard.

She sighed in _true_ disappointment and using her disapproving voice. "Ace, I know you want to keep the idiocy line of the family going but really with this kind of crush you are taking it _too far_."

The roars of laughter, sniggers and hoots were louder than any thunder. The Den Den Mushi was moving around nonstop, thumping loudly as he transmitted the rucks, the pirates around her were clutching their stomachs or backs while laughing, some complaining about cracking a rib laughing too hard.

_Those people were too easy. She hadn't began with the good jokes yet._

"What, no, let me explain, you and the inflated brat are.." Hatchy was still trying to climb the three thousand meter pit he dug with his own hands.

"Well, at least, you get the inflated brat right, Luffy would you leave something for the watching masses."

Now, that she knew that they were er.. _friends_ , she should try to be more civil.

"You said I had to share only little," Luffy strongly disapproved of the notion of sharing, using her words against her.

"I did," she muttered, trying to think of how to approach this without making a liar out of herself, Luffy hated lies. She busied herself with flipping the paper pages when she noticed an article about Ace, she scanned it.

Fire Fist Ace had officially joined the Whitebeard crew… hmmm...a tattoo in his back...

"Ace, what the hell _Ace_?"

"HUH," Ace responded, cutting his explaining, about Hatchy idiocy comparison with the laughing people around him, short.

Marcy kept on reading, loudly this time.

"Destroyed three pirate ships and then four marine battleships single handedly.."

"Oh, that?"

"Cool! Ace is really strong, but I am stronger..." Luffy cut in.

"Oh really?"

"Increased his bounty by 275 million Beli, making it one of the higher bounty to a non-commander.."

"Awesome, when I become pirate, My bounty will be bigger.."

"You are already a pirate … about that.."

"Oh, right, no, Marcy said it doesn't count until I am seventeen.."

"What happened.."

"Don't change the subject… what were you thinking? Huh? attacking all of them single handedly… you are part of crew, you are not even the captain anymore...you don't go doing stupid shit alone, you take everyone with you… someone has to get your ass out when you chew more than you can eat.."

_Bad example, she was so pissed that she was giving bad examples._

"I wasn't alone, Marco was with me and the fir..

"Wait, Marco was with you.. where is **he**?"

"I am here, y..."

"What the hell were you thinking, HUH, you let him go _baitshitcrazy_ all alone...aren't you the first mate and I thought you were the mature responsible adult there..." she huffed and continued with her pissed monologue.

"Are you all sick in the head… no, you are definitely crazy to let this moron join you in first place.. let me tell you.."

"What the hell about you? What could had f**king happened for you to leave, explain that, 'responsible _adult'_?"

"Watch it a**hole, You don't know what we had to deal with? So keep your big ass trap shut.."

"Then enlighten me. Why did you set sail now when you are sixteen and Luffy fifteen and not seventeen like we f**king promised?"

"Marcy?" he demanded again when her retort wasn't directly forthcoming.

"Marcy?" he repeated worry replacing the anger with each call of her name.

"Sixteen." She repeated, staring in stunned disbelief at the Den Den Mushi.

Somewhere deep in her brain, she realized that Ace was calling her name, but right then she didn't care, she had more urgent matter to _chew on_.

"Sixteen," she said once again weighing each syllable of the word in her mouth.

_Inhale, wait and exhale, rep.._

She looked at the date in the paper she was clutching tightly in her hand, staring at the date, he was right.

No, she was not sixteen.

She was _sixteen and 19 days_.

She hadn't noticed before, she was trying to make sure they stayed alive.

_Marcy, Inhale, wait.._.

"Marcy, what is it? is it bad, do you want to speak privately.."

"Sixteen..." Marcy murmured again, distantly she noted her voice had a hysteric undertone.

She didn't give f**ck, she was _sixteen_.

"I am already sixteen," she murmured, still trying to wrap her head around the idea.

"Marcy…," Ace was calling her name in full-fledged panic, she realized, he was doing that for a while now.

"Marcy why are you crying?" Luffy had stopped eating, oh, he was standing in front of her, tense, just like before a fight.

He was blocking the view of everyone, protecting her, glaring at everyone and anyone, he even glared at the Den Den Mushi. She was always amused when Luffy acted like _overprotective idiot_ and she had always made fun of him, but not this time. She was so grateful.

"Ace did you say mean things to Marcy again?" He demanded to know, he was really pissed, even more pissed than that time when she took his meat as punishment … punishment for what she can't seem to remember.

"No, Luffy, I asked why did you leave…."

Marcy touched her cheek. It was wet.

Yeah, she was crying.

She didn't seem to be able to stop.

She ignored the noise and panicked activity around her and murmured to herself.

"Makino promised to take me to the special cake shop in the city and she said I could chose whatever I wanted… she was going to teach me how to cock the special chicken stew.." she sniffed, it was hard to breathe.

"..And Dadan said that she would give me money because turning sixteen was one time event in a girl's life… and the moron bandits promised to keep everything clean and orderly for week…" she hiccuped, she wasn't able to see in front of her, everything was blurry. Her tears were streaming down her face. She rubbed her eyes violently.

Everything was quiet around her, but she hadn't been paying any attention to her surroundings for a while now.

"And the old man from the stupid corner shop said that my boat would be ready by then… me and Luffy … we were supposed to try it and go to the island with … and camp there...was looking forward to it .." she hiccuped again.

"Oh, God … shit … this is bad.. Marcy… please...," she heard someone cursing panicky, sounded like Ace, he was funny… but his voice seemed so far. Oh, yeah, he was far away, he was somewhere in the New World.

"I don't remember, where was I when turned sixteen … was it on the slaver's ship, no, before when we ran away from the training…. no, maybe in that deserted island with weird crow… no, probably on the way between them when we were drifting..." she mumbled to herself. She tilted her head upward looking at Luffy, he seemed closer, did he move?

Luffy was looking at her steadily, not panicking and not judging, he always looked at her the same way, but now he looked a bit sad. She would bet she knew why, he was sad because he couldn't beat the shit of whatever upset her, he could only be there in the flesh for her.

Oh, Luffy, _stupid dork_.

She told him loudly through the tears, ignoring everyone else whispers, calls and their whole existence, everyone seemed uncomfortable to say the least, she didn't care, she had enough problems of her own.

"I don't know!" She yelled her anger and frustration.

He nodded for her to continue, _it is okay to be angry and sad. I am here he was saying, it is okay._

"I don't know when I turned sixteen!"

And with that announcement the folds of her anger, frustration, fears, doubts and worries were all let out.

…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Your thoughts? This chapter was the longest I ever wrote, it took a lot of me in the emotional level too.
> 
> I wonder what was your favourite (or touching) moment? I had several. XD
> 
> .
> 
> Waiting eagerly to hear your thoughts :)


	9. At Least That Was The Plan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author notes:
> 
> .
> 
> The chapter was beta'd by the wonderful Gerbilfrind who helped me a lot with grammar and paraphrasing and general ideas, and to build the first part of this chapter. I really enjoy working with her XD
> 
> .
> 
> Warnings:
> 
> English is my fourth language. Warning may change in the future.

.

.

"Was the Moby just attacked?"

Aladine said, asking out loud what was on Jinbe's mind.

They were both standing on the Moby's deck for few seconds now, or what was supposed to be the deck, a heavy smell of smoke tainting the air.

Aladine had insisted on coming along with him to meet Pops, according to him it was going to be entertaining meeting and someone had to tell the whole thing to the crew later (and Jinbe was not to be trusted). How Aladine concluded that this conversation with Pops about the rescued mermaids, his allies in Paradise and the two children and their relationship to Ace was going to be funny was beyond him.

The Moby was not on fire (anymore?), but the effects of fire could be seen everywhere and nobody seemed to be phased by it. They got some nodded greetings, but nobody stopped to chat with them, everyone was simply busy. They were all moving around doing something, trying to repair the deck as quickly as possible by removing the burned wood of the broken masts of the ship.

Jinbe shook his head in bewilderment as well as to wake himself up, and once again looked at the destruction on the Moby. It seemed like the Moby was under heavy firepower just before they arrived, and that in itself was quite weird. They didn't see any escaping ships (sailing with their tails behind… no, with no tails at all or any other missing chunks, usually several) or sinking ones (completely wrecked) for that matter in their way here, and who in the New World would dare to go after Pops like that? Well, if they were going after Pops they needed at least this kind of firepower.

He had a niggling feeling of deja vu that would not leave him, making his aching headache from days ago flare up again, he tried ignoring it (unsuccessfully).

Jinbe looked around searching for one of the commanders or someone that wasn't busy with some urgent task, to ask what the hell happened and if they could speak with Pops.

"Move that to the lower deck and any broken wood, yoi ..."

He heard Marco's voice in the distance and moved craning his head around and searching for him to find him in midst group of people, gesturing and ordering everyone around in  _desperate attempt_  to clean the mess fast.

It was probably trick of the sun, but Jinbe could swear that Marco's hair seemed to have a silver glint. Jinbe blinked, shielding his eyes from the setting sun, trying to squint and see more clearly.

Marco had eaten the phoenix devil fruit. It was definitely a play of the light, the trip here and the whole ordeal prior to it had taken its toll on him, he had begun to imagine impossible things.

Jinbe sighed and closing his eyes, trying to stay optimistic.

The whole thing (he doesn't know how describe the last few days, no, weeks and  **thing**  just seemed to fit) was bizarre and nerve wracking but at least they were here now. Soon he would get some answers, hopefully satisfying ones.

"Jinbe!"

Jinbe was jolted from his drifting thoughts.

"Jinbe."

He turned to face the one calling his name, Aladine was beside him showing clear concern on his face and had a questioning arched eyebrow eyeing Jinbe's confused face.

Jinbe sighed, he guessed that Aladine had called him several times, before he had noticed (it wasn't the first time it happened).

His head was in the clouds again and the headache was not helping.

Jinbe gave him a nod in return to show that he was okay and turned calling loudly.

"Marco!"

He called his name several times, before he saw Marco titling his head looking around, spotting him, his face showing genuine surprise.

Strange, Marco should know they were coming, they had called ahead.

"Oi. Jinbe, what are you doing here, yoi?"

_Strange indeed._

"I called and spoke with Curiel two days ago, to let Pops know that we were arriving today."

"Oh, make sense, we just arrived yesterday, yoi, and as you see a bit busy ..." Marco gestured around him, his face showing exasperation.

He heard him murmur under his breath about idiocy and something about Thatch?

_Was it a prank gone wrong and not an attack? But this amount of damage from prank? Not likely, or was it?_

"Everything is okay?" Jinbe asked quietly.

Marco's demeanor unsettling him, Marco seemed haggard. His eyes were not showing their typical lazy but amused glint.

"Were you attacked or something?" Aladine added when an answer was not immediately forthcoming, still eyeing the state of the ship and the working  _bees_  flying around.

Marco had unreadable look on his face.

"Or something," Marco agreed, not giving any details, he rubbed his face, but to Jinbe's eyes he seemed to be  _palming_  his face.

"We come here to speak with Pops," Jinbe decided to get to the point, understanding that he would not be getting any information from Marco.

Marco suddenly tensed, making Jinbe tense too. What the hell…?

"Now is not the best time," Marco said blankly.

"Oh?"

Marco relaxed his shoulders and shook his head, his face showing pinched expression.

"He is.. speaking with Ace."

The pause between the words had not gone unnoticed. Jinbe and Aladine shared a knowing look.  _Was it because of his siblings?_

"Is A.."

"Yeah, Ace is okay," Marco cut in, answering the unasked question and added, "So is Pops."

"Actually we wanted to speak also with Ace about his siblings."

Marco froze, if Jinbe thought he was tense before, then he was wrong, completely and utterly wrong.

"About what exactly?" Marco's voice had cold undertone to it. He seemed defensive. Jinbe couldn't help the shiver running down his spine.

Jinbe took out the wanted posters slowly from the right pocket of his coat.

First, he needed to make sure they were speaking about the same people. No need for misunderstanding and misinformation in the beginning of  _what promised to be exciting_  conversation.

"Are they Ace's siblings?" Jinbe asked gesturing at the crumpled wanted posters in his hand.

Marco only glanced for second at the posters before he gave one nod, his eyes not leaving them for second. Marco was still tense and his face was blank.

"They were the ones that defeated Arlong." Jinbe finally said, looking to see what Marco's reaction would be.

Marco arched his eyebrow in surprise, but his eyes narrowed as if considering things deeply.

"Was it not vice admiral Garp, yoi?" he finally asked, he seemed unsure about something, something else not the question that he just asked.

"No, not according to Hatchan it was the two siblings, the marine came at the end.." Jinbe trailed off seeing the emerging amused look on Marco's face and his posture relaxing.

Jinbe sighed inwardly,  _what was going on?_  and added outloud.

"And they also saved the kidnapped mermaids."

"Oh, right, Izo told me that mermaids were fo….. Wait, _Ace's siblings, yoi_?" Marco demanded, emotions running wildly on his face too complexly for Jinbe to be able to decipher.

"Yes." Jinbe said accompanying his answer with a decisive nod.

Marco seemed to be truly bewildered, quietly repeating the words that Jinbe just said to himself.

Jinbe and Aladine looked at each other sharing their confusion and bafflement.

Marco finally asked, stressing each word.

"They saved the mermaids from the slaver's ship, yoi?  _Ace's siblings_?"

"Yeah," Jinbe answered,  _that was given, was it not?_

They shared another look,  _were they missing something?_

Or maybe Marco was hurt, it would explain the glint of silver, maybe whatever or whoever had attacked them used something to stop the effect of devil fruit …

A smirk was blossoming on Marco's face, his eyes finally glowing in their typical manner.

"Finally some good news, yoi."

HUH.

What?

Well, yes, saving the mermaids was good news. But Marco had already known about it, so what was it? That Ace's siblings were the one to save them? Why was that such good news?

"Follow me, yoi," Marco told them while turning and striding to where Pops chair was.

"But ..." Jinbe began, unsure about the whole conversation they just had.

He looked at Aladine, who shrugged and moved after Marco, Jinbe followed behind them.

…

..

.

XXXXX

.

..

...

"Pops, yoi."

Marco had stayed a respectful distance from where Pops was sitting. When Jinbe looked for Ace he saw him on the huge armrest of Pops's chair and he was so still that he could be mistaken as a statue at first glance.

Ace was tensed as a coiled steel spring and was staring with undivided attention at a …. Den Den Mushi.

"Jinbe is here to speak to Ace and you, yoi," Marco announced even more loudly.

"Jinbe, my son, I heard they found the kidnapped mermaids," Whitebeard greeted him with smile, taking gulp of his sake in the process.

Jinbe felt himself relax a bit, being called son always made something in him feel at ease.

"Yes, Pops, thank you for all the help," Jinbe said heartedly, bowing deeply.

Whitebeard nodded and raised both eyebrows in mild surprise at Aladine's presence. Jinbe usually came alone, less chance of the marines finding out, but he didn't comment on it.

"Not at all," Whitebeard finally said out loud with amusement clear in his voice at Jinbe's formal thanks.

"Anyway, I want to speak with you about the kidnapped mermaids."

Whitebeard's eyes narrowed and he nodded gravely.

".. and Ace," added Jinbe, unsure if he should even address him.

Ace didn't react to the mention of his name, he was in a world of his own, him and the Den Den Mushi (Maybe it was a date? Everyone had their own preferences after all).

Maybe he would mention his siblings issues later, it didn't seem that A..

"Ace, yoi," Marco called and not waiting for reaction, he continued.

"Luffy and Marcy saved the kidnapped mermaids from the  _slavers' ship_."

Ace instantly jerked as if a coiled spring released, he was standing staring at Marco with unseeing eyes.

"What?" Ace uttered finally, his head moving around staring at each one of them in urgency.

"Ace," Pops called his name softly and firmly.

Ace's head snapped to his direction, he opened his mouth, closed it, nodded, and sat down in his place, looking at them with same intensity that he looked at the Den Den Mushi. He was undoubtedly very tense and in turn making them tense.

"The two of them defeated Arlong too." Jinbe couldn't help but add, he was not sure if this information would help his case.

Ace mouthed the words and seemed to take several deep breaths, and then he uttered from behind gritted teeth.

"Explain."

"Hatchan was able to arrive two months after we heard the news of Arlong defeat and capture. He told us the news was not true, their defeat was because of your siblings."

Ace seemed to become more confused as he tensed even more.

_What the hell was going on? Was he himself not making any sense, he doesn't seem to know anymore?_

"The news said that Garp defeated and captured Arlong, yoi. Arlong is a fishman that left Jinbei's crew and took control of an island in  _East Blue_ ," Marco gave all the necessary missing information in one concise sentence.

Ace seemed to be deep in thought, nodding to himself, he seemed to be a bit more relaxed, at least now he was not glaring at them. Jinbe felt himself relax a bit without the deadly scrutiny.

"Where is it?"

Ace demanded and when he was greeted with confused expressions he added impatiently, "the island, what its name?"

"It is small island in the East Blue, called Conomi Island."

Ace nodded for them to continue.

"Arlong .. well, he took control of the village and its people … one of the children, Nami, in the small village had navigation skill .. Arlong made her join his crew and .. killed her mother at one point.."

Knowing that he might have been able to stop this if only he did the right thing and stopped Arlong, dammit, dammit….

He felt Aladine patting him on the shoulder and squeezing hard, bringing him back to reality. Everyone was waiting for him to continue, his father was looking at him with narrowed eyes, he would no doubt want to speak to Jinbe about this later.

"Anyway your sister and brother arrived to the island almost three months ago …Hatchan said it seemed they arrived by mistake, they were having a screaming match .. and the girl Nami was trying to drag them away … when Arlong's crew found them."

Jinbe paused, even though the story made some sense in his head, he was finding it hard to tell it coherently.

"Your brother challenged them while your sister was trying to talk them out of it… but your brother was pissed and he attacked some of the crew, it was swift and they hadn't expected a small human boy to be that strong..."

Ace had the corner of his mouth jerking up but he wouldn't be amused by the next part.

"Arlong took your sister and the girl Nami as hostages to try to stop your brother which had the opposite effect and made him more pissed..."

_Annnnnd now_  Jinbe had another pissed brother right in front of him, a halo of fire surrounding him (Thanks a lot Arlong). Marco had gone by where Ace was, standing beside him and murmuring something quietly, and then leaning beside him on the armrest.

"… anyway Hatchan didn't know what happened next but one minute Arlong was standing there threatening them with knife and the next second he was screaming on the ground … he was.."

Jinbe found he was without the right words to explain the next part,  _would the family jewels sufficient_? _His manly parts, the formal word was tesicles .._

"Kicked painfully on the nuts," Ace continued for him, a nasty looking smile on his face and unpleasant look shining in his eyes.

Jinbe felt a shudder go down his back. Arlong was lucky to be stuck in Impel Down, truly and utterly lucky.

Hatchan had only revealed the last part few days ago, after the whole  _family jewels_ was revealed by the two small mermaids terrors.

Jinbe had made sure that all the mermaids arrived safely back home, and since then he had refused to take any calls from Fishman Island  _personally_ , but the news reached him nonetheless, and it was far from encouraging. The count of victims having their jewels  _struck_  was getting higher by the day.

Jinbe had considered that Hatchan may be keeping things for them when Jinbe had asked him point blank exactly how was Arlong was defeated and Hatchan was vague in the answer he gave (and now that he thought about it he made no eye contact either).

He had thought then that Hatchan was being vague and hesitant because it was humiliating to speak about being defeated by children,  _human children_  at that.

Oh, he was right, it was a humiliating defeat in every  _way._

"Yes, repeatedly," Aladine, answered when Jinbe failed too, with glee evident in his voice.

Jinbe shook his head at the joyous malice in Ace's eyes, and ignored the snort from Marco.

"They all were stunned out of fighting, well, except your brother, who seized this chance to beat the shit out of the startled crew.."

"More like he didn't care or wasn't paying attention," murmured Ace, he seemed to have relaxed a bit more.

"By then the residents of the island had come, ready to fight and help the children.." Jinbe carried on.

Hatchan was vague about this part too, but it seemed this time because he wasn't paying attention (Jinbe did somehow sympathize, he didn't think the view would have been as funny as Aladine's quiet snickering would suggest).

" ...and somehow in the all the chaos the marines also arrived lead by vice admiral Garp .."

Ace clearly tensed up hearing this name. Jinbe thought that he had imagined Ace tensing up hearing Garp's name before, but he was sure now. Vice admiral Garp had a  _relationship_  to them.

"Hatchan said that your sister had shouting match against the vice admiral and the boy joined in, he didn't know what was it about but it was extremely loud… people were trying to plug their ears, and that was how he was able to get free and jump into the water …He said it took him more than week to shake the marines of his tail.. " Jinbe trailed off, this wasn't important, what was important...

"What is their relationship?" Jinbe asked instead and then added to clear the meaning of his own vague question.

"Garp and the siblings? Hatchan was under the impression that they were marines or at least marines' recruits?"

Hatchan was very surprised to see their wanted posters.

Ace looked at Jinbe as if he had five heads and a shining glowing mermaid tail while he was mouthing the words. He then snorted and burst out laughing, clutching his stomach, his whole demeanor changing for the first time, he seemed truly relaxed and happy.

"I should tell Luffy that someone thought of him as marine, his reaction will be hilarious.." he said and then burst into another round of deep bellied laughter that rippled through his frame.

Ace took several deep breaths.

"Garp is Luffy's grandfather and Luffy would  _never_  be a marine."

The way Ace said it, it was a universal truth, like needing food to survive. It left no room to question it. It just was.

Ace tensed up again and somberly asked "about the  _slavers ship_?"

"You know about the kidnapped mermaids?"

Jinbe had learned from his last experience and wanted to know how much to explain.

Ace nodded hesitantly.

That decided it for Jinbe, he would be as clear as possible.

"Almost three weeks ago ten mermaids were kidnapped, two of them were children, seven years old."

They were safe, they were all safe. Ichika and Nika were safe (well, safe may not be the right adjective to use). They were busy terrorizing the  _jewels_  out of the poor residents of Fishman Island as he was speaking.

Jinbe paused, forcing his clenched hands to relax.

"We are yet to know how," he looked at Whitebeard, who gave him a nod of acknowledgement, they would discuss this privately and at length. This couldn't happen again.

"For a lot of reasons we thought they took the kidnapped mermaids to the New World, but they tricked us and they took them to Paradise instead… Pops sent his allies to help look for them in Paradise and we were in our way back there to search and rescue them when we get a call that the mermaids were found on the shores of Sabaody Archipelago. According to the mermaid they were rescued by your brother and sister from the  _slavers ship_."

Jinbe paused, letting everything sink in.

"The mermaids didn't want to tell us too much because they promised your siblings to keep everything a secret. They seemed to like them a  _lot._ "

Too much for keeping his sanity _intact_.

Aladine snorted beside him, letting out a loud chuckle.

Jinbe reminded himself that it was probably not a good idea to complain to Ace now about his siblings'  _unconventional_  teaching (Aladine called them free-spirited, Jinbe wanted him to try to say  _free-spirited_  with pointy spears rammed into his nuts).

"We got from the mermaids that they were searching for you, and that was by accident."

The avalanche of tears that they barely avoided because of that  _accident_  was still fresh in his mind.

"Later I was able to speak with Lucas privately, she is one of older mermaids that was kidnapped."

Jinbe paused, to take breath and to consider how much and how to tell, then he shrugged mentally, he would say it all, there was no point in being discreet and sensitive now.

"Lucas said that both of your siblings were suddenly brought to where they were keeping them inside the ship. They both had chains in their hands and feets and looked tired and .. no, your sister looked tired, the boy was smiling and was asking about food."

Jinbe paused again, trying to put everything in order in his aching head before he said it outloud.

"Your sister looked around and didn't seem to be bothered by anything she saw but was muttering loudly about their bad luck and how of course the ship to pick them would be a slaver ship, not marine, not pirates, no, slavers.."

Lucas was amused telling him all of that, she even repeated the whole long monologue to Jinbe, this was just the gist of it.

"... and between her muttering, she would burst laughing loudly. Lucas was sure she was crazy."

Or experiencing a manic episode or that the witch with two legs they were told about in stories as kids had just walked in.

Lucas said that she was actually more sure that girl was crazy the more she knew her, but Lucas said it in such loving tone that Jinbe felt that Lucas thought her craziness was to be admired.

Ace face was blank but both his hands were clutching the armrest wood painfully.

"Your brother ate all the food that was there for the mermaids, which wasn't much."

"That's Luffy for you." he heard Ace mutter while he nodded, not surprised by such a behaviour coming from his brother.

Hearing about those two children's behaviour, accomplishments, and mannerisms was very confusing and trying to decipher it was impossible. The boy sometimes seemed as selfish as a mule other times selfless as an angel, there were too many contradictions to even begin to understand his mind.

"The older mermaids were more wary of them, but the small ones become fast friends with boy."

Ace didn't say anything, only gave him a nod, indicating for Jinbe to continue.

"Your sister told him to stay out of trouble, and then she dropped on the floor."

Lucas had thought she saw someone die on her  _feet (the whole meaning of death on two legs just changed)_. According to her it was really scary, but the boy didn't react, was still chatting away with Ichika and Nika.

"The mermaids checked on her to find she was in deep sleep." He added hurriedly.

"The kidnappers came back later to check on them and your brother demanded more food, the small mermaids repeated his demand."

All of them cheering for meat, not that the two terrors knew what meat was.

Jinbe decided to approach the next part carefully. He knew firsthand what a pissed off fireball Ace looked like, and Jinbe didn't think Ace would care that he was only the messenger (or the unfortunate prey, the feeling of deja vu was ringing in his head).

"The kidnapper started to beat him up and your brother didn't fight back."

Yes, carefully and slowly, Jinbe thought, Ace's body was tensed as a steel spring ready to pounce, his reflexes well primed in that stance, his body innervated by his cold anger, much like a panther, waiting for his prey to do one wrong move.

"And when the mermaids didn't shut up either, he used rod to produce electricity currents in the water to keep them quiet and under control."

Jinbe gritted his teeth and clutched his hands into his robes, those bastards, to small children, they dare..

"The slaver found himself knocked out. Your brother headbutted him into the ground."

The boy with all his contradictions was something else, really Jinbe wanted to hug the life out of him when Lucas told him about that part, he still wanted to hug him now.

"Lucas said that your brother has a weird devil fruit powers that can make him change his body."

"Yeah, Luffy ate the Gomu Gomu no Mi."

This explained it. Inflated weird body parts indeed.

"The other kidnappers come to check on the noise, and your brother fought them still chained and he was somehow winning, but one of the kidnappers threatened to bomb the collars around the mermaids' necks if he didn't stop."

Those piece of shit, the scum of earth and sea.. He was going to find them and ...

"Your brother stopped fighting, and the other slavers began beating him up, and he stayed quiet, not reacting .. or fighting back ..."

_They really owed him a lot._

Lucas had to stop several times, while telling him this part, she tried not show it but she was very emotional. He couldn't pinpoint if the reason was how badly he was hurt or because a human was going that far to protect them, it was probably a bit of both.

Jinbe had stopped looking at anybody for a while now, especially at Ace, but in the corner of his eyes, he saw Ace's shoulders twitching restlessly.

"Your sister appeared suddenly behind their leader, the one that threatened to blow them up, and she kicked him right on the testicles making him squeak loudly before fainting. She somehow got away and was free, without any chains and was jingling a ring of keys in her hand."

Jinbe paused, swallowing his relief, and letting the image sketch itself in the listener's mind.

It was the only time he immensely enjoyed hearing the sentence being kicked on the testicles (especially coming from his own mouth!).

"She said that the crybaby on the ground was lying and that those collars only exploded if you tried to take them off and not to worry she had the keys."

Jinbe finally looked at Ace's direction, to find him staring at him intensely, unflinching. The protective glint in Ace's irises made Jinbe feel like flinching himself, he wondered what was Ace really seeing.

"It was a short fight but not an easy one. In the end your brother and sister and the mermaids beat all of the slavers up and chained them and with that they took control of the ship."

Jinbe expected Ace to show some kind of relief, but no, he was still the same coiled spring he was before.

"First thing your brother and sister did after they freed everyone, they found the kitchen and had a feast."

Still no reaction, not even smile, even Marco was frowning while eyeing Ace, so was Pops. Pops had kept a natural expression the whole time but had gone from observing Jinbe to observing Ace.

"Your sister interrogated the now prisoners and then called for meeting to decide on appropriate punishment."

Ace snorted at that but was still tense.

"She called it a 'brainstorming exercise', and everyone could suggest anything they thought would be a good punishment. She even had a notebook and was writing down ideas. She then called the meeting to a close and gave everyone a permanent markers with different colors and told them to go wild, your brother began writing and drawing on the sails, everyone followed his example, they even wrote and drew on the slavers faces and bodies, after they stripped them."

He wondered if it was a small mercy or forgetfulness (oversight from their side) that Ichika and Nika didn't demand markers. No, he felt shiver run down his back, he had a bad feeling about that.

"The best revenge is a creative one that is Marcy's motto."

Ace muttered to himself, shaking his head, he looked a bit distressed, like he was reliving a traumatic memory. It made Jinbe wonder about the reason behind the face, while Marco had an amused smirk.

"They found maps and several Eternal Poses..."

One was to Fishman Island, how the hell did the slavers get that one? Those things cost a literal fortunes, that was another matter to consider.

" ...and helped the mermaids decide on which direction to swim to, while they took boat with whatever food was left, and left the slaver's ship with slavers tied and chained there."

Marco arched an eyebrow and Pops had an interested look.

"When Lucas asked your sister about it, she shrugged and said that the slavers getting hungry until someone found them wouldn't make her lose any sleep. She seemed sure that someone would find them soon, and Lucas let it go."

Jinbe sighed, he had finally finished telling everything he knew, now was his turn to ask questions, first..

"You said that fight was short but not easy. Were they hurt?" Ace demanded, his voice was cold in contrast to his burning body.

Oh, right, he did say that.

"Lucas was hurt a bit, the slavers used electricity in the water to discipline them after all, and according to Lucas your sister, while fighting, got her back hit with the electricity rod, your brother had it worse but both of them seemed fine afterward."

Probably because he was made of rubber, electricity and regular fists didn't work on him.

The boy literally bounced back to being a hungry cheerful ball of sunshine according to Lucas' enthusiastic description.

"F**king shit, dammit...Back? Her back? You are sure? Dammit..."

Jinbe was jerked out of his thoughts at hearing Ace cursing but could only nod.

"Is there something wrong, yoi?"

Ace seemed to have deflated and was gnawing on his lips, his hands unconsciously breaking the armchair's wood bit by bit.

"Marcy has burns along her back… and if she is hurt she will not show it, she doesn't like to be seen as weak, and she would not want Luffy to worry...shit."

Marco had his arm around Ace's shoulder in second and even though they were speaking quietly, their conversation was easily heard by the others.

"At least you know about the slavers ship, yoi, and it isn't as bad as we first thought..."

Ace didn't seem to agree, he was still as tense and unhappy as before.

"We now know where they are, yoi, and A.O and his crew will keep them safe."

Ace nodded reluctantly, but he was clearly not convinced.

"If you don't mind me asking…" Jinbe began and then trailed off, when nobody reacted to his words, he tried again..

"Ace.. about your siblings .."

"What?" Ace snapped.

Marco squeezed his shoulder hard and answered instead of him.

"They were not supposed to set sail yet, yoi, but something happened that made them set sail early. We thought they might have been taken by slavers."

Jinbe nodded, that explained their reaction to the slavers story and why Ace seemed so worried and tense, but that doesn't begin to explain why the siblings were involved with two incidents, was it coincidence, truly? Was there such thing?

Jinbe opened his mouth to ask another question from the millions swimming in his mind…

"purupurupurupurupurupuru."

….

..

.

XXXXX

.

..

…

Marco rubbed his face again, refusing to smell his hand (not that his  _refusing_  helped, mind you!)

He could imagine Thatch saying he smelt and looked (and tasted) like broiled chicken in burnt pineapple soup. But then again, Thatch was not any place to call others names.

The idiotic moron, this was  _all_  his fault.

Why for all that is precious and good couldn't the moron keep his mouth shit, just for once. Once, dammit.

They needed to somehow repair all of this, Adam tree wood, shit, this would cost fortune and then the wasted flour, shit ..he needed to examine the budget again, and see what can be done …. dammit.

He wondered which (thoughtless) moron had said that pirate life was free and fun and if they had ever had to handle the budget of three ships with more than 1600 members (for those that did not understand sarcasm, it was NOT).

The moron (probably the same moron), Thatch was still in the infirmary getting first aid for his burns (he should stay there for his own sake, and Marco's).

Really, The moron should have known better than to ask loudly and repeatedly to the flaming and tense Ace if his  _little sister_  had just said 'slaver's ship' in her breakdown monologue right after the call was just cut off.

He had gotten what he deserved if you asked Marco, his burns were not even serious (and unfortunately his hair was without burn or breakage, which was the most important thing in Thatch's eyes). Nobody else was hurt (really, they all felt the danger and ducked away, yes, he meant into the water, no, not him).

Thatch had gone to the infirmity mainly to make Ace feel better, as always after such an accident, guilt would eat him (if he wasn't busy being tense worrywart about his siblings, he would be sulking and feeling depressed about the explosion. Really? What the hell would he do with this child?).

Marco would bet that the real reason that Thatch had gone to the infirmary was to run away from all the cleaning work.

Oh, if he think he got away, he has several things coming his way, and they were not pretty.

Those last several days, no, since they discovered the wanted posters, almost two weeks ago, he felt as if he aged a century.

Marco wondered how he looked, he really wouldn't be surprised if he found (even with his devil fruit powers) he had grey hair.

Marco sighed and wondered if he should answer the still ringing Den Den Mushi, that Ace was scarily and tensely staring at, his hand reaching towards it but frozen midway.

Not that he could blame him.

Who knew that Ace's little brother was one scary dude when he was in an angry overprotective mode (well Ace for one, he was the same, after all). Ace's little brother took control of the situation ordering private room from A.O's crew and yelled that he would call Ace later, and cut the call without Ace being able to ask anything.

They had called them back after Ace calmed down (after the explosion and extinguishing the fire) Marco sighed in misery, remembering the cleaning work that was still waiting for him to oversee.

Dustin, the first mate, answered after a long wait, and told them that Luffy took over the captain's cabin, he locked himself and Marcy in and demanded more food to be prepared and to bring a lot of chocolate (which they had gone looking for in shops in the island) and told them to stay quiet with fierce glare, that was three hours ago. Ace called every half hour since then (Pops had talked him out from calling every five minutes). And the only good thing that they heard from the crew is that they couldn't hear the sound of wailing anymore.

Ace took long breath and finally answered the Den Den Mushi with shaky hand.

"Hey Ace," a cheerful voice greeted him.

If his brother was back to being cheerful then…

He saw Ace's form relax a little bit and he answered evenly.

"Hey, Luffy, is Marcy…

"I'm here," her voice sounded a bit hoarse and most definitely irritated.

"Marcy." Ace said her name with breathless relief, his whole body deflating.

"Are you ok?" he murmured.

"I am fine." Her curt reply came rather quickly. The irritation was clearly evident this time.

She was clearly telling Ace (and them) that this (her breakdown) was not something to be discussed. Ever. But that was not the only thing in Ace's mind, especially after hearing Jinbe's tale.

Marco saw Ace opening and closing his mouth three times and swallowing. Ace was considering how to go about asking what he wanted to know, clutching his thighs painfully.

"I heard you were hurt on the slavers ship? How bad was it? Is your back okay?"

"Yea…. wait, how the hell do you know about that?" She demanded hotly, suspicion coloring her last words.

"Ahhhh.." Ace began, rubbing the back of his head.

Jinbe came closer, gesturing for Ace asking his permission to move closer and to answer this question instead, Ace nodded with evident relief.

"Hello, my name is Jinbe, I am Ace's friend and the one that told him about the slavers ship accident. Thank you for saving the mermaids. They are safe and back home."

Jinbe seemed to be more composed now, then when he was telling them the story.

"Ichika and Nika are back home? They are ok?" Luffy cheerfully asked and cheered at the same time.

Marco had wondered if Luffy had left Marcy alone to speak with Ace, but now he knew that Luffy was there keeping quiet, giving his brother and sister chance to speak freely and reconcile after how the last call ended.

He was smarter than he was letting on. It was probably good tactic to use, having others underestimate you was a winning strategy.

"Yes, we found…"

"Wait, you said your name is Jinbe, as the one that sent crooked nose to East Blue?" Ace's little sister cut him off.

He saw Jinbe stiffen, his mouth frozen open, hearing her statement. It may have been posed as question but it was plain and simple accusation.

He assumed  _crooked nose_  was Arlong.

"Ahehhh, he isn't friend of Ichika and Nika?" Luffy sounded confused.

"No, he didn't send him." Ace suddenly cut in, his voice showing no doubt.

"Is he Ace's friend?" Luffy asked.

"Yes," Ace said with conviction making Jinbe startle from whatever guilt trip he was experiencing, it was obvious he was blaming himself for everything. Marco shared look with Pops. He would leave handling Jinbe to Pops. Really he had his hands full as it was.

"Ah, Ok," Luffy answered, the Den Den Mushi, nodding enthusiastically, and for him that was enough, Ace said he was friend then it meant he was friend. But would it be enough for Marcy?

"I didn't send him there, but I am at fault for not stopping him. l am truly sorry for that." Jinbe said, you can almost touch the sorrow and shame in his voice.

"You are apologizing for the wrong people."

Marcy wasn't as convinced or as merciful.

"Yes, I…" Jinbe began, his posture straightened up.

"You can apologize to Nami when we come to Fishman Island," Luffy announced, cutting him off again.

"What? She is with you?" Jinbe asked in total panic.

Nobody said anything about another child with them, did they miss something..

Luffy only laughed while Marcy answered.

"No, Luffy speaking about two or three years from now."

"Wh..?"

"Nami is going to join my crew, she is going to be my navigator." Luffy announced in seriousness.

Marcy snorted.

The boy already had plans. Marco looked sideways at Pops, to see his reaction, after all his plans for the brats would crush with their own plans. He wondered who would prevail, he usually didn't even need to consider this. Pops was always the winner (as you could see with Ace), but in this case he was not completely sure. He just had this  _premonition_  of special kind of imminent disaster.

"Marcy, do you have some kind of beef with her?"

"Beef, you ate meat with Nami, without me?" Luffy accusing voice, rung loudly.

Really, the brat and his meat was special kind of entertainment. He should probably increase the food supplies by two, maybe three,... dammit, back to the blasted budget issues.

"No, you moron… really? Ace, you used  _beef,_  really?..."

Ace shrugged, seemingly chastised enough but with sheepish smile on his face, "...Ace meant if I don't like her."

"You don't like Nami?" Luffy seemed quite upset.

"It is not that I don't like her, we are just too alike…" she trailed off.

"Why are you nodding?" Marcy demanded.

"Nami said that you are the same, and you make her feel better about her tw..tits.. Tiw.. tite...t…"

"Twisted," Ace helped him, hidden snicker behind his hand.

"Yeah,  _twited_  personality," Luffy beamed.

"Did she now?" Marcy murmured, her voice going alarmingly quiet.

"And that I can handle it," Luffy added the last part and burst laughing.

"Do you know what she meant when she said you could handle  _it_?"

Marco would swear he saw one of the Den Den Mushi nostrils twitch repeatedly, as if booger was being dug out of it.

Marco shook his head, rubbing his head, this day was getting to him, imagining such weird things.

"Nope, Nami's weird. I can handle anything," Luffy announced, he didn't seem boastful. It was like he was stating universal truth.

Marcy was suspiciously quiet, Marco noted that Ace had an amused smile.

"What about the mermaids? Is Lucas okay?" Marcy demanded startling Jinbe, he was not yet used to the absurd conversational skills this family had, skills might not have been the right word to use. Maybe a heart attacks, or weapons of mass destruction.

"Yes, we found them by Sabaody Archipelago... It is an island near Fishman Island. Lucas is fine, her burns were treated, they were nothing serious, and I spoke with them four days ago, they were already home."

"And that's how I know that you got hurt," Ace declared right after Jinbe finished, he was back to being tense.

"I am fine, just small burns."

"Did you get treated? Someone checked them?"

"Nope."

"Luffy," she screeched.

Ace face palmed, his shoulders slumped, he was not amused.

Marco had the impression that Ace's siblings were having a staring contest, maybe because of the bugged, unblinking eyes of the Den Den Mushi.

Marcy huffed in annoyance and murmured quietly, "I didn't have the chance to yet."

Ace didn't seem be happy hearing this,  _at all_ , he opened his mouth… when Marcy added.

"I will see if they have doctor here and ask him to check them."

Marco get the feeling that she was trying to cajole Ace and Luffy, more than she was worried about her own injuries, trying to keep the peace.

Ace seemed to be a bit relieved, but still was not happy, he opened his mouth once again, probably to demand that she go right this minute to get checked.

"Don't you want to know why we left?" Marcy said in some kind of fake cheerfulness.

Smart, really smart. Changing the conversation to the most important matter, the matter that made Ace sleepless (and by extension Marco).

Ace tensed up, his shoulders stiffening up. She was one manipulative chick.

"Marcy…."

It was not Ace, but Luffy quiet uncertain voice, it was hard to imagine the cheerful child, being this quiet and solemn.

"Oh, stop it Luffy. Maybe hearing from Ace that we did the right thing, would finally get across to your  _thick stupid full of meat head_  that we didn't break our promises, we actually kept them."

She was annoyed, no, more than annoyed, she sounded like someone on her last drop of patience with this subject.

Luffy didn't react to this.

Ace was getting tenser by the second, so was everyone else, including him.

"Sorry," Marcy mumbled quietly after small pause and added.

"It was in way your fault Ace."

What? how...

"It wasn't," Luffy rebuffed this accusation and added in angry voice.

"He was trying to protect me."

"It doesn't mean that he shouldn't have made sure there were no loose ends, especially when he stayed  _behind_."

This was ongoing discussion, or fight, that they were not privy in its details and even Ace had no idea what they were talking about from his confused hurt face.

"No, it isn't."

"Wait…" Ace yelled trying to get a word between their stream of confusing words, or at least he was trying.

"Bluejam is bastard."

Ace froze.

"Of course he is. Did I say otherwise. Bu..."

"Wait, what? Bluejam. He didn't die in the fire? What the hell did that bastard do?" Ace yelled, he seemed to be steaming anger and aggression.

Who the hell was this  _Bluejam_ , what the heck did he do to earn Ace's ire and hate.

"Oh, I wish," Marcy intoned in displeasure.

"From the beginning." Ace demanded impatiently.

"This is the beginning." Marcy irritably answered.

"Who is Bluejam?" Aladine asked suddenly, saying what was on everyone's minds.

"Bastard."

"Piece of shit."

"Low life asshole."

"That's very informative, yoi," Marco murmured to himself, or so he thought until he earned a murderous glare from Ace.

Ace was seriously pissed and it showed in his very tense posture and facial expressions. He was glowering at everything. Ace took a long breath, forcefully trying to calm his nerves, clenching and unclenching his hands and said between gritted teeth.

"A piece of shit pirate back home, he is cruel liar piece of shit that tried to kill Luffy and me. He and his men and those dammit piece of garbage nobles burned the Gray Terminal down with everything and everyone in it."

Ace paused, and took another deep breath, his hands turning white as he gripped his knees hard before explaining.

"Gray Terminal is the dump ground for the rich spoiled brats to dump their garbage in. Anyway Dadan and me beat him up and left him to burn in the fire he set."

Marco was always glad to learn more and more about Ace and his past. But now he finally understood a bit more of why was Ace so reluctant to reveal it. He was sure that what he just told them, as interesting and impressive as it was, it was not the whole story, no, it didn't began to unveil what truly happened there.

"Well, you  **didn't** , he came back." Marcy bluntly told him, clearly unhappy about this turn of event.

"As business man," She added between gritted teeth.

This fact pissed her more than the first. Interesting, why?

"The bastard found your and Sabo's treasures and he hurt Makino." Luffy pissed voice declared.

"He did what?" Ace snarled, true to god, he had an actual animal snarl coming from his throat.

"Who is Makino?" Aladine asked, the brave soul, not afraid from asking the hard questions.

"Ace's first crush," Marcy said in matter of fact tone.

"She isn't," Ace spluttered in denial, he was not sure if it was Marcy's intention or not, but Ace had relaxed considerably hearing this.

"Ehh, Makino is Ace's best friend? I thought it was Hatchey."

Ace looked at the sky seeking help, or maybe patience, guessed Marco, found none, and then asked in quiet voice.

"What happened?"

"Bluejam come back that what happened," muttered Marcy in evident anger then she sighed in displeasure.

"From what I gathered  _Bluejam had_ become some kind of hotshot businessman, he mainly did shipping, specifically gemstones, I guess he found your treasures and put them into good use."

Marcy expelled a long sigh and mumbled.

"We didn't know any of this, and we didn't know that he was in Goa kingdom. I didn't even know who he was until I had the  _pleasure_  of meeting him."

Even a deaf dimwit would understand, that the meeting was anything but a happy one.

"It was just regular day, me and Luffy decided to eat lunch at Makino's bar after the morning training. When we arrived at the bar, its outside was full with all kind of people, the kind that you just knew was up to no good. I was considering leaving and coming back later, or going from the back door to check on Makino quietly, when Luffy just burst in demanding food, ignoring the tense dark atmosphere."

Ace shook his head, nostalgic smile crossing his face, this behavior was nothing new for his brother.

"I, of course followed him inside, to find that Woop Slap, the cynical mayor was there, surrounded by men with guns and Makino was beside him, she was trying to calm things down. Those cronies were following the orders of the asshole  _Bluejam, who was sitting there enjoying drink._ He was happy to see Luffy bursting in, asking about where you were,  _Ace_. He had come specifically to this  _dump_  to settle score with you, according to his  _articulate_ words."

Marcy was clearly gritting her teeth as she spat out the last bit.

"Anyway, he came to Makino's bar searching for you, and his  _minions_  were looking for you, Luffy and the bandits in the village and the forest. The mayor had gone to speak with them, it wasn't going well, when me and Luffy crashed the party. He then told us all about your history together, he didn't seem to mind that he was once a low life, probably because he was still  _one_. He had come back to get his  _dues_ , first you and Luffy and then the bandits, then the nobles after he finished using them.."

Ace was immersed in listening, he was drinking every word, but his face was flashing to different emotions, telling the story of how he was feeling about this, anger, irritation, shame, and rage were the main ones.

"I never understood some people and their obsession with telling others their plans." Marcy said snidely, apparently this was a big  _beef_  of hers.

"The asshole ordered his cronies to beat everyone until he got his answers. Luffy beat the cronies closer to us and tried to punch him, Makino tried to interfere and the asshole hit her instead."

"Bastard." Luffy cursed angrily.

"Luffy then went berserk like  _you do_ , they basically destroyed the bar .." she trailed off.

"I took Makino and Woop Slap out of the chaos, and told them to find Dadan and the bandits and to tell them what was going on and to call Garp, to come handle  _this_. This village was under his protection after all." She muttered several unflattering words under her breath and carried on.

"I don't know how I was able to get Luffy alone for few ..."

"You punched me and it hurt." Luffy complained.

"You deserved it, anyway, I told him that we should steal one of their ships and run with it."

"Running away is not the manly way." Luffy announced, he was cross with her, he could see Ace's little brother pouting, even Ace smiled and short chuckle rumbled in Pop's throat.

Marcy huffed.

"We were not running away, we were taking the fight somewhere else, so no one else would get hurt and the place would not be destroyed  _even_  more. I basically had to drag you.." she grumbled.

" _Anyway_  as expected, the morons followed us.. They shot cannonballs at us..."

Luffy cut her off.

"I threw them right back at them, I have 100% accuracy now,  _shishishi_." Luffy boasted with laughter.

"Right," Marcy uttered, giving everyone the impression that his announcement was not 100% accurate.

Her next words added to the  _accuracy_  of that impression.

"I guess we are extremely lucky that Luffy can't be hurt by cannonballs or bullets, or we would have been in some deep trouble .." she trailed off.

"To put long story short, we beat them up good although I had to save Luffy twice from drowning.."

She sounded dejected.

"By the end of that fight I was like drowned rat."

Luffy laughed, without care at his sister's troubles.

"I punched  _Bluejam s_ everal times, until he went to sleep _."_

Luffy gleefully told them.

"Lucky or not, Garp was in his way to the village, him and the marines rounded up all of those bastards there and when they finally arrived rounded Bluejam and his cronies."

Marcy snorted when she finished speaking.

Marco wondered why she didn't call him grandfather but by his given name but neither Luffy nor Ace were surprised by it. Was their relationship not good one?

"Really, Bluejam looked  _real attractive_  with a swollen face and handcuffs on his hands."

She didn't sound as happy as the words implied she should.

"Garp decided to take them to base nearby, and we were to come along to give testimony before going back home."

Everyone could hear her quiet murmur of, " _at least that was the plan_ ," before she carried on.

"Garp was beaming from happiness and boasting about his grandchildren being marines in the making ...he and Luffy had big fight about that," she said, her voice was colored with exasperation.

"Marines yuck."

Marco laughed out loud, and he wasn't the only one, Pops almost choked on his sake. Marco thought  _that_  eloquent description was very accurate.

"Grandpa is a meanie." Luffy added after a small pause.

"Garp got even more stubborn with Luffy shouting insulting things back and announced that we will begin training to be marines early, which made Luffy more angry …" she trailed off with a sigh of resignation.

"The never ending cycle of idiocy."

"Marcy is more meanie," Luffy suddenly announced in an accusing tone, Marco could imagine him pointing his accusing finger at the bewildered Marcy.

"What ? Why?" her reply was instant, even Ace looked surprised.

"You made me wear the  _marine_  uniform," the disgust was clear in his voice, the  _yucky_  was clearly there without it being said.

"Agehh, again with this. For the who knows how many times, It was a pretend game, so we could trick the marines."

Ace asked loudly, "What happened after that?", Clearly intending to stop what was going to be a long winded pointless argument.

Marcy seemed to get what he was trying to do and answered immediately.

"I spoke with Garp privately at the evening, and he said that after we put the  _scoundrels_  in the base, we would be in our way home. We get to the base without much trouble expect the continuous fights between Luffy and Garp."

"Business as usual," remarked Ace quietly.

"The marine base leader was some new hotshot named Morgan the axe, we left the prisoner there. We didn't even get to eat before we had to leave, not that I minded, the father and the son duo gave me the creeps, even Garp behaved strangely. I was sure he would beat the spoiled brat son … doesn't matter...

"Helpo is crybaby." Luffy seemed to agree.

"Garp said to celebrate our entry into  _marine life_ , he was going to take us to some floating restaurant…"

"Food.." yelled Luffy enthusiastically cutting her off.

"Yeah, Luffy, we all knew that restaurants serve fo… oh, you can put them there…."

They could hear some people speaking faintly and things being moved, Marco assumed that  _physical_  food had arrived, the munching sound alone would have given it away.

Marcy cleared her throat.

"At that time I knew that something was not right. I mean you all suck at lying. I think it is genetic, and it was obvious that Garp was not telling us everything, and even though his shitty stubborn moron he would not make us join the marines against our will, so something else was going on..."

"He can't, I will never be a marine. I am going to be the pirate king." Luffy announced in firm resolve between bites.

The boy had big plans, Ace had already mentioned the pirate king thing before, but Marco still looked at Pops to see his reaction, to find to his surprise Pops had a thoughtful look on his face (instead of the amused look Marco had expected).

"So I began to gather information, which was harder than I thought.."

"You mean eavesdrop," Ace corrected her, amused.

"Apples and oranges. Please, do I look the eavesdropping type, I have more elegance than to use such primitive ways."

She cleared her throat again and stayed quite for few seconds, seeing if anyone else dared to comment in her  _intelligent way_  of doing things.

"I heard Garp speaking with someone about wanted posters,"

She paused and stressed every syllable.

"Our wanted posters, me and Luffy's wanted posters …

"We get it," Ace complained.

"No, you don't," Marcy yelled angrily and said once again.

"Garp and whoever the hell he was speaking to were discussing ways to stop our wanted posters from being published."

This was getting more interesting. Ace froze, the words finally sinking in, he seemed lost, unsure..

"Why were you issued with wanted posters to begin with? yoi. You didn't commit any crime according to what you told us."

"Thank you, someone with brain. Yeah, exactly. WHY. Garp even suggested we become marine trainees to stop the wanted posters from being issued, whoever he was speaking with said he doesn't think it would help, but it might get Garp more time. Time to do what, I had no idea."

This was getting weirder and weirder, but very interesting too.

"It took me another three days of gathering information to hear him speaking with the same person again, saying that he was sorry and it didn't work, and that the wanted posters would be issued soon. He was going to do his utmost to delay them but that was all he could do and that the order for the posters to be issued come from high above, he said 'that low life had friends in high places'."

Low life, someone with grudge against those children, who could… no, who in the marines was powerful enough to be able to delay issuing a wanted poster …

Things were in play that neither he or Pops and definitely not Ace, who had probably had nightmares of scenarios running in his head when he saw the wanted posters of his own siblings, had imagined.

"I was considering who was the low life that could have such influence, when I heard Garp curse loudly and say Bluejam's name."

"What?" Ace choked.

Marco frowned trying to put all the pieces together. He understood why she was more pissed that he was business man. But even a business man couldn't influence the marines except….

"Yeah, the boasting about him being rich and important was not all air." Marcy spat out and from between gritted teeth added.

"The piece of shit had the support of some  _Celestial Dragon_ , bite me if I know how."

Ace tensed up, biting his lips hard, his nails drawing blood from his hands, Marco was considering how … when Marcy murmured.

"A lot of things made sense then, why Bluejam was not in chains and why we left in hurry, Why was Garp acting weird, why we're going further from home ..I won't be surprised if he had a hand in the huge increase in your last wanted poster." She added the last bit thoughtfully, clearly it just came to her.

Ace jerked up in surprise. His hands clenching and unclenching unconsciously, Marco could guess he was tearing his own wanted poster to pieces mentally (Ace was proud of it before, but not anymore. Marco should probably tell the crew not to congratulate him on the increase of his bounty, or mentioned it for that matter).

If Bluejam had this much influence and backing, then that was quite possible. Looking at Pops's face, they seemed to reach the same conclusion. That Bluejam bastard may just bit off (for the last time) more than he could ever dream of chewing.  _ **Nobody messed with Whitebeard's sons. Not even a bloody Celestial Dragon.**_

"I decided that was enough information gathered and that we needed to run away, I thought at first that we could trick everyone and go back home quietly and hide in the forest…" she trailed off, her voice had dreamy quality to it.

"But I knew that if Bluejam truly had that much influence that home would be the first place they would look for us, it would be swarming with his cronies." She mumbled, it was clearly a hard but true conclusion to arrive to.

"I was not sure about what the best course of action, but I knew that we couldn't stay with marines if we were to have wanted posters. Even  _Garp_  couldn't protect us, he couldn't stop the wanted posters... I wanted for us to get away first before considering our options, which was me being an idiot, because  _ **Luffy**_."

"What?" Luffy yelled hearing his name, his voice full with chewed food.

Ace sighed, shaking his head.

"How bad?"

They were both ignoring Luffy's incomprehensible input.

"He  _butchered_  five escaping plans, the most we got away was half day … well, Luffy ate the all the food and enough said we got caught every f**king time." Marcy sighed in defeat.

"I would like to say that the marines are idiots but they are not  _that_  idiotic, it became harder and harder to escape with each try."

She paused, clearly remembering those unsuccessful painful days.

"Our sixth try was  _partially_  successful, we escaped on a boat with a lot of food which should had been enough for two weeks, it was finished by Luffy in a day… We were drifting on our second day, when Luffy saw a seagull and decided that it would be a delicious snack, it was a news coo, Luffy ended shooting himself into the sky using it."

Marcy was clearly shaking her head with every word, the Den Den Mushi on their side was at least shaking its head.

"Seagulls are awesome, they can find you anywhere.."

The sound of the food being munched had disappeared, Luffy was back to listening and commenting.

"Not exactly," Marcy cut him with snort.

"Going to catch one and make him my Nakama.." Luffy was clearly ignoring her.

"Good luck with that, with the fact that we are being  _boycotted_  by them."

"What, why?" asked Ace, he didn't seem surprised by the idea of news coo boycotting his brother and sister (was being boycotted by the news coo even possible?), he was more curious.

"Whenever Luffy saw one after that time he would try to catch it, he succeeded only once, and then he tried to convince the poor bird to join him by talking his ears off and by giving him meat. Let me tell you it wasn't funny."

Marco disagreed it sounded quite funny, he shared an amused look with Pops, his eyes were twinkling like storm. The more the brats spoke the more Whitebeard wanted them as his son and daughter. Jinbe looked confused, not sure how to react to any of this. Marco saw him blink several times as if checking if this was real and not a fragment of his wild imagination. Aladine was the one having the most fun, cackling and chuckling at every bit, listening with focus of someone intending to repeat everything to some other people.  _The mermaids?_

Ace seemed to be fighting with himself, before losing the battle and laughing out loud to Marcy's ire.

In the other side of line there was heated battle being fought.

"... meat is the best, he should have agreed, I will show him next time the greatness of meat ..."

Marcy muttered something that they couldn't decipher and said loudly,

"Since that  _last_  episode, we magically didn't see any, and I mean any news coo or seagull for that matter, even though I think I glimpsed one when we were on Hawkeyes's boat… I think."

"Hawkeyes? The Shichibukai?" Jinbe, one of the Shichibukai himself, asked in mixture of astonishment and incredulousness.

Their journey sounded unbelievably staggeringly ridiculous. What the hell happened …. or maybe he should ask what the hell didn't happen to them in this short journey.

"Yeah, we.. no… I didn't know that then. He seemed quite interested in Luffy, no, Luffy's hat. He helped us get into the Grand Line, without him it would have been extremely hard."

"Hawaky is cool, he has a big awesome sword, but he refused to join my crew."

Pops let out loud laugh, clearly approving.

"So I told him I am going to find the best swordsman ever and he would beat him up good."

Marcy was rolling her eyes repeatedly if going by the Den Den Mushi's facial expression, he wondered if it was because of irritation at the situation or the mind-boggling craziness of it all.

Jinbe titled his head to Ace's direction, his face showing dumbfounded shock.

"Your brother asked a  _Shichibukai_  to join his crew?" his words, were half accusing and half waiting for confirmation (or was it denial?).

Ace shrugged, not bothering with an actual answer, he asked Luffy instead.

"Luffy, you know what Shichibukai means?"

"Shibabakbake, is it some kind of food…"

He clearly didn't know and neither did he care (maybe after they explained it to him. Marco could ask him what he thought about Ace being asked to join. It should be entertaining to see Luffy's reaction. The question was who would explain it to him).

"… Oh, yeah, Hawaky is Shanks's friend…. oh that makes sense now.."

The bloody Red Hair again, at least  _he had already_  left (finally, the bloody ass, he took his bloody sweet time) but his shadow was still here.

"What make sense now?" Both Ace and Marcy asked, both looking interested.

Marco assumed logical jumps were rarely occurring with the boy, and they were  _far_  from logical.

"It is because he is Shanks' friend that he said the same thing.." Luffy paused then continued with different voice and manner.

"Good luck young man, I will wait for you and your  _best_  swordsman at sea."

Luffy was imitating  _Hawaky_  (the boy was truly fearless! Whitebeard -  _bread_  and now this), this boy was unbelievably gutsy, shit… Marco wished he was on the other side to see how his face looked, (It promised to be truly  _captivating)_  and he wasn't the only one, looking by Pops and Aladine faces. Jinbe was just unbelievably confused.

" _Hawkeyes_  said they were barely acquaintances." Marcy gave the more believable status of their relationship.

Not really surprising, their fights were what everyone spoke about whenever they happened in the past.

"Actually Shanks came here asking about you, he was really worried."

The bloody annoying Red Hair, Marco hoped to never see his ugly mug ever again.

"Shanks did?" Luffy's voice was full of childish excitement.

"Yeah, Shanks said he was surprised and proud when he saw your wanted poster. I should call him and let him know that you are all alright. He told me to tell you  _he is still waiting_."

"Shanks…"

They heard him murmur softly.

"Wait, that's means that you met him and introduced yourself as Luffy's big brother." Marcy cut in, excited.

Ace smiled sheepishly, his hand rubbing the back of his head.

"The first thing I did when I arrived to the New World."

"Oh my, oh my,  _what a good big brother you are_ ," singsonged Marcy.

The girl had natural talent for poking fun of Ace.

"Marcy," Ace said dejectedly, more like in defeat, but he was still smiling.

Their father bellowed a laugh, and everyone else was smiling, Marco couldn't help but smirk at the reddening of Ace ears (even it if it was indirectly because of Red Hair).

Marcy decided to have  _mercy_  on Ace's soul and get back to their story.

"Anyway, Luffy shot himself up using the seagull and I was panicking because sea and Luffy sinks like an anchor. So I was rowing in total panic looking for his drowning form when I saw an island nearby, and knowing Luffy's luck he would land on it. So, I breathed out in relief and rowed there less  _panicky_ , of course I should have known better, Luffy landed on a private memorial and of course ate the food…."

"Tangerines are the best but not as bestest as meat," cheered Luffy, not bothered by anything. In such instances Marco thought that being born as an idiot was blessing.

Marcy ignored him and continued.

" ...and made friends with the annoying orange head brat, by the time I got there crooked nose and his crew was there…. yeah I am speaking about what happened in Nami's island which you should know  _all_  about."

Aladine cleared his throat, he was clearly waiting for this.

"If you don't mind me asking, how did you defeat  _crooked nose_?"

But they knew how, Jinbe just told them, did he want to hear the story again? He did laugh his butt off ...or was there something more..

"Marcy kicked him in the family jewels." Luffy answered for her, in disinterested voice, like someone that never had the awful experience of being kicked in that area... hmm..

Oh, him and Luffy had something in common because of their devil fruit their manhood was safe. Marco smirked at that entertaining thought.

Marcy huffed in annoyance.

"That asshole dared not only put knife on me, but touched my chest."

That was a sin that couldn't be forgiven by her voice, Ace seemed to agree with her by his tensed figure. It was good that the moron Arlong was in Impel Down, or maybe not. He could see Ace trying to break in there just to strangle the life out of the  _crooked nose._

Marco sighed in resignation.. he would have to keep watch on Ace again for a while. He should kiss his sleep goodbye once again, his devil powers didn't mean that he didn't need sleep, God dammit, or should he say Ace-dammit like that moron Thatch..

Marco's lips were pulled into sinister smirk when sudden thought descended on him, because he ran away from cleaning, Thatch missed the most important conversation and Marco would tell him all about it  _in detail_ , oh, no, not the conversation itself… really Marcy was right. The best revenge was all about  _creativity_.

"He called you a flat chested tomato and...Ouch…."

Ace cringed.

The boy should know better, he was yet to meet Marcy in the flesh and he knew better.

"Eat your food and keep quiet."

"Meanie. There is no food."

He seemed more upset about the missing food part. How much food did he need? Four times more food supplies? Shit, they would need to increase their missions and their hunting and….  _Joy_ , more work for him.

"Of course, I gave that rude hellion some much needed lessons in manners. I was just getting warmed up, just found the best angle to kick him by my twelfth try, if it wasn't for that shitty octopus I would have…"

"Octopus?" Aladine and Jinbe said in the same time, both sharing surprised look. What..

"Yeah, he had all of his eight arms around my _body_  stopping me for kicking crooked nose. Luffy punched the octopus, and I was able to kick him once in the one  _place_  that matters… I am going to find him and beat the crap out of him...just you wait."

Jinbe face became green, it didn't look good with his blue skin. Aladine burst laughing, tears were glistening in his eyes.

"We can make octopuses balls..tak.. takoyaki," Luffy said beamingly.

"Leave it to Luffy to be able to pronounce food names right." Ace commented, amused.

"Sounds truly appetizing," Marcy approved, her voice sounded sickeningly sweet.

He felt sorry for the unlucky Octopus, calling him dead meat sounded ironically fitting.

"Garp came at the end as  _usual_ , after we did all the hard work, and rounded up everyone, of course except future  _Octopus balls_  who got away…"

Oh, Octopus balls was  _Hatchan_. Jinbe not making any eye contact confirmed that.

Lucky him, Ace was too busy with his sibling's antics to make the connection.

Oh my, what should he do? An ominous smirk crept across Marco's face while he considered his options.  _It was always about the timing of things._

"... the villagers decided to throw us a party, Nami and me tried to use it as distraction to run away, but Luffy was in the midst of eating contest against Garp."

"I won." Luffy announced with the air of conqueror.

"They finished the whole food supply of the village."

"Seriously?" Aladine choked, still laughing.

"Do I sound like I am kidding," Marcy answered with annoyance and added.

"Fortunately, the villagers didn't seem to mind, thought they did complain about the marine base nearby that didn't answer their calls for help. Garp promised them to check it out on our way to the restaurant, and by checking in it out he ended putting all of them under arrest, the whole damned base."

He didn't find that so surprising, Garp had a reputation for being hard ass on everyone, his own even more.

"I decided to forgo trying to escape for now and focus on gathering more information. I found out we were going to the Loguetown Marine Base, the captain there was  _good_  sort according to my sources."

She paused. She seemed hesitant for some reason, even Ace picked on this by the frown on his face.

"I also happened to hear Garp speaking with someone else. His voice was different from the other two times, it was deeper...They were basically screaming at each other then speaking quietly and again… It was really weird. I thought that Grandpa was only that kind of ' _excited'_  when speaking with family… anyway, I got that the person he was speaking with was going to come get us and keep us safe … some marine called Garp's name and the call ended… Garp was in weird mood the whole day afterwards."

Marco wondered if she had noticed the slip of tongue, calling Garp grandpa. Ace seemed to have not noticed either, he was in deep thought.

"The whole thing made me understand how serious the situation was and that it was the whole bandits' situation again…He was going to dump us on some unsavory people _again_  that he thought owed him. We would stuck there with whoever they were for our own  _safety._ "

Ace nodded, he looked unhappy as Marcy sounded.

"I dug some more and found that my feelings were right on the money. Bluejam was back on Goa as free man, the marines needed to apologize for such oversight in their part. Garp was reprimanded and his pay was cut off and he and his subordinates were actually off duty."

Marcy paused.

"Leave it to Garp to go catch pirates and bad apples in his time off." Marcy muttered snidely.

Marco shook his head. Out of everything that was what bugged her the most.

"I decided if we were going to run away our best chance would be in Loguetown Island, it was the last stop before the Grand Line with a lot of ships... but for now I needed to get supplies, money and more information."

Marcy added in amusement.

"We did actually stop by the floating restaurant."

"They have the best food, Sanji is going to be my cook, he is the best, better than Hatchey."

"How you are going to convince the womanizer to join you?" Marcy sounded truly curious. Ace had his eyebrow raised at the womanizer comment, and he was yet to lower it.

"I have Nami." Luffy announced in confidence.

"…"

".."

".."

Did the stupid innocent boy just imply that..

Marco stared at Ace, both of his eyebrows were up high, his mouth open in shock. The boy had left them speechless.

"Wow, Luffy, I didn't know you had it in you to be manipulative," Marcy said with clear admiration in her voice.

"Huh, what does manppptive mean?"

"Tricky."

"Huh, wh... no, Nami would convince him, she told me she once convinced a pirate to give up his treasures and food. Isn't that cool?"

Making him give up food impressed Luffy more,  _definitely more._

Marcy snorted.

"I believe stole is the word you are looking for."

"Shishishi, we will steal Sanji away."

Luffy didn't seem to care how if he get what he wanted. Those stubborn selfish people were quite dangerous, he should know, his father was one. Marco gave Pops a questioning look asking for his take on this. Pops didn't seem to care, he was quietly enjoying himself. Marco would bet the Moby that Pops was looking forward to facing the brat. The two of them facing each other was going to be on big headache for him, he was the one to pick the pieces in the end (metaphorically and literally).

"Thanks to him being womanizer, I didn't have to pay for Luffy and me's food and I actually got some food supplies before the head chef kicked us out, and threatened us with  _bloody bodily harm_ if we ever came back."

"But I am going back to eat the yummy food there and steal Sanji away." Luffy whined.

"Best of luck to you. I am not going to set foot on that wretched place ever," she huffed, "Really! I understand kicking you and Garp out, you have no manners whatsoever but he kicked me,  _me_ , out. Even though I ate only a bit and was extremely polite. I refuse to depart from my money in such uncultured place."

"But you didn't pay." Ace pointed out.

"It doesn't change the point." She replied decisively.

Marco saw Ace opening his mouth and mouthing  _'which is what?'_  before he soberly shook his head and asked instead.

"Marcy, what happened next?"

"Took us a week and a bit to arrive to Loguetown, I didn't hear any more  _enlightening_  conversations in the way."

"Logtown is so cool, Smokey showed us around, we went to the execution platform, but Smokey didn't let me climb it."

Luffy generously shared his experience, where did Marco hear the name Smoky again…

"Not that that stopped you from trying to climb it Every Single Day."

Did Ace's siblings not know about his biological father, for some reason he was under the impression that they knew…

Ace was tense but not overly so.

"Garp needed to leave to do something. What the heck was he doing when he was suspended only god knows, and he put the captain Smoker guy as our babysitter. He was for some reason  _captivated_  with Luffy, he even tried to _convert_  him into a marine."

Ace snorted hearing this, while Luffy laughed jovially like this was one good joke.

"Smoky is funny guy, he said marines have fun too.. _Shishishi._. How could they have fun when they have to wear uniform and have the same flag …  _soooo boring_ and what about adventures?"

Marco found himself snickering with the others, hearing Luffy's  _reasoning._

Captain Smoker, Yes, Marco remembered something vaguely. He had some interesting devil fruit, he would check later what kind of information they had on him…

"Let me tell you he was good. He was able to keep up with Luffy, but not good enough for me not to be able to slip away and get information about ships leaving to the Grand Line, and I found several that we either could pay our way in or just became uninvited guests for a while and I also found out that there was a marine training exercise scheduled in two days. So, if I were to  _convince_  the pirates to stir some trouble on the training day, Smokey and the marines would be either busy with training or the trouble in town, and with Garp not there. We would sneak onto one of the ships leaving that day and with the money I borrowed we would be safe for a while,  _at least that was the plan..._ "

This was a good plan, he had no doubt that she would have been able to convince the pirates to stir up trouble, she had a way with words. But as with every good plan, something unexpected would come and turn everything upside down...

"The biggest problem to my otherwise  _perfect_  plan was Luffy of course, with everything going on I didn't explain to him what I had found out. He was regarding the whole thing is  _mini adventure_  in preparing for his own true adventure. I did find it weird that he didn't go explore all the new places as he usually would do, except the execution platform."

"I want to have the real adventure with my Nakama."

Luffy let it be known that he was listening, and he was not impressed with her plans then and now.

"I explained to him everything again and again and again… and  **he**  still refused and insisted that we should run away and go back home, that he would not break his promise to you or to Sabo, that.." she trailed off with sigh of total defeat.

This was the second time that the Sabo person was mentioned, and every time Ace would grab his upper arm with tattoo on it. It seemed unconscious gesture. Who was he? What was his relationship to Ace and his siblings?

Ace looked conflicted, he seemed to force himself to relax by taking deep breaths.

"Luffy," Ace called, his voice soft but had an authoritative quality to it.

But no answer came.

"He is listening and sulking." Marcy said after few seconds, her voice was blank.

"Luffy, you didn't break your promise."

"But we left before seventeen and I have a wanted poster and I didn't even try to get it." Luffy answered quietly, his voice was subdued. His cheerful and strong headed attitude is nowhere to be seen. This was something he took hard, breaking promise was a taboo in his eyes.

"That doesn't matter, you didn't break your promise, did you leave intentionally?"

"No," Luffy basically yelled, the Den Den Mushi shaking its head violently.

"You couldn't go back because otherwise everyone would have been in danger, the mayor, Makino, Dadan.. everyone."

"But still, it doesn't mean th.."

"Luffy, when Sabo left, do you think he broke his promise?"

"What? No, Sabo left because he didn't have choice, he wanted to protect us."

The Sabo person again, and they always spoke about him in past tense, did they lose touch with him? Was he  _dead_? Well, it would make sense.

Ace was clutching his tattooed bicep so hard his fingers turned white.

Marco saw Aladine opening his mouth, probably to ask who was Sabo, but Marco caught his eyes in time and with decisive shake of his head and heated glare (to make sure the point get across), indicating for him to stay quiet.

Aladine got the point and closed his mouth soberly. Jinbe moved closer to Aladine and murmured to him quietly. Jinbe give Marco a nod. He would make sure they were listeners without input.

"Are you angry at him for leaving?" Ace voice was calm, but his posture was emitting a mixture of sadness and deep seated anger.

"I am angry but not at him."

The anger could be tasted with every syllable Luffy spit out.

"Do you think Sabo would have been angry if you left to protect your friends?"

"No," Luffy said quietly, and asked hesitantly after small pause.

"Ace isn't angry?"

"Oh, I am angry, but not at you and Marcy. I am proud of you,  _both of you_ , that you protected everyone and came to find me even thought it was hard decision."

Ace paused, swallowing, relaxing his shoulders, and pulled smile on his face, an unnatural one.

"You truly have become strong."

What he was trying to do worked.

Luffy laughed a cheerful laugh.

"Of course, I bet I can beat you now."

Ace smile became smaller but more natural.

"Not that strong, but we will see when you arrive, I will beat the shit out of you like usual."

The Den Den Mushi seemed to be beaming with excitement and happiness.

"I will be the one to beat Ace this time, you will see."

A sudden rumbling sound cut the peaceful quiet.

It sounded like..

"Marcy, Do you want food? I am going to bring more."

They could hear a door opening and slamming the next second.

"Finally, the doom feeling has disappeared. I somehow feel pissed! I explained all of this to him in detail so many times but he stubbornly held to his guilt and self-disappointment, and just one word from you and he is back to being the truly cheerful idiot we know and love."

"Marcy are you both fine?"

Ace asked once more, the meaning of his words was clear, he was not asking only about physically but also about mentally.

She groaned but answered nonetheless.

"Yes, now that you cleared this with Luffy I can say we are totally fine, and don't ask about  _me_. I am fine, _peachey_ , the bright rays of sunshine, a permanent resident of cloud nine and seventh heaven. I am the  _essence_  of health, cheerfulness, joyfulness, optimistic, carefreeness, happiness, …"

Ace opened his mouth not sure how to stop  _this_ , he looked helplessly around him.

"What happened next, yoi?"

Marco to the  _rescue._

She stopped abruptly in her monologue and expelled a long sigh.

"It took a lot of time and effort to convince Luffy. In the end, I stole a Den Den Mushi and called Dadan. We spoke with Makino, Dadan, the mayor and the bandits. They all said the same thing: 'for us to stay away, that if we are not there they would stay safe'. Bluejam's men were everywhere, but they didn't make any trouble. Dadan and the bandits were staying low for now and that the asshole sent his men after us, if they were busy following us then they couldn't do any harm there … I guess hearing all of this convinced him and when I told him we would go find you … he decided to go along with me..."

She stopped speaking, her voice getting soft at the end.

"My plan didn't work, the marines somehow found about the pirates hideout and gone to raid it and delayed the training exercise, putting the town on lockdown, and Smokey, the bastard, he locked us up before leaving to do his  _real job_."

She sighed, and depressedly added.

"All my work had gone to the drain, so I decided to go with plan B, I picked the lock."

"Since when do you know how to pick locks?" Ace asked unbelieving.

Marcy cleared her throat and in formal tone she declared.

"For survival purposes derived from being related to dumb and dumber. I decided after deep thought and long consideration that I needed to add some  _unsavory_  skills to my arsenal, picking locks is one of them."

Ace sighed. He really couldn't say anything to this. Could he? And more importantly what other  _unsavory_  skills she picked?

"Then, yoi?"

"I borrowed some marines' uniform and like that I became a captain and Luffy a lieutenant..."

The  _yucky_  marine uniform finally come to play.

"...let me tell you, it was a down right battle to have Luffy wear the marine uniform.. I boarded the ship and decided to do a sudden inspection…"

"How?" Ace cut her.

She was making it sound like it was the easiest thing ever to impersonate a marine inspector.

"I announced who I was and that we were here to do a sudden inspection and then glared at everything, while Luffy was going around doing whatever until he found the kitchen, which I left him to  _inspect_  thoroughly."

They could hear the shrug in her voice. It was the easiest thing ever, at least to her.

"I made them sail the ship to examine the ship engines and sails when  _unfortunately_  Garp came back. We heard him on the Den Den Mushi radio."

"What did you do?" Aladine asked breathless, he seemed excited. He had already forgotten all about Marco's warning. Marco gave Jinbe an  _unimpressed_  raised eyebrow. Jinbe slumped his shoulders and with pinched expression, dragged Aladine by the collar of his shirt several steps back, throwing Marco an apologetic look.

Marcy sighed, clearly unhappy, she muttered, "The one time that we wanted him to be late, he arrived early, so f**king typical."

She sighed again, and said in the seriousness of someone that looked at every option, and arrived to the bitter truth.

"The only thing I could. I announced the beginning of the training exercise, the enemy was Garp's ship."

They all cracked up, laughing hard.

The girl was fast on her feet (and off them), she was very cunning.

Pops let a long chuckle, moving his body forward to listen more clearly, he even put the sake bottle down (That was first!). Marco give him a look indicating to the bottle with his head, and Whitebeard gave a shrug accompanied with smirk (what the hell?).

"They went with it?" Ace asked truly curious.

"Cowards, they were all scared like shit," Luffy announced.

Luffy was back and so was the munching sound.

"You mean you are not scared of his  _fist of love_ ," Marcy asked knowingly.

"That's different! Even Ace is scared of it." Luffy defended himself hotly, stopping his eating spree to do so.

Ace was startled, he didn't expect to be dragged into this. He ignored Marco questioning look about the truth of the statement. He would ask him later about it, in front of many  _specific_  people...oh my Ace, this would be fun.

"Aehh, what about you Marcy?" Ace deflected.

Evasiveness was cute look on Ace.

"I am smart enough to stay out of any situation where the  _fist of love_ may be involved, and if nothing else I can always cry my heart out." Marcy said boastfully.

"Crybaby."

"Ouch, you meanie."

"How did you convince them to fight?" Ace asked trying to get them back to the matter at hand.

"She gave them a speech with a lot of words, they all cheered at the end and began fighting like morons."

"You cheered with them, and began fighting like moron too. I needed to drag you from the fight several time for us to escape.."

"What kind of speech would motivate those fools to go to their death?"

Jinbe seemed confused hearing the words his mouth produced, he didn't intend to say that out loud. He looked abashed at Marco's direction, mouthing sorry repeatedly. Aladine was snickering at his predicament.

Marcy cleared her throat and in authoritative voice she declared.

"You are our future heroes, the one to stand for justice and defeat evil.  **You**  have to be ready, always ready, for anything. You could never know when evil would appear and strike, it would not wait neither will it face you right ahead.  **Evil**  and his followers are full of trickery and would gnaw on your weakness, but justice have  _none_. No weakness.  **You**  have none."

She paused. He had no doubt she did the same thing when she first said it. She was good, really good.

"And the evil in front of us now is  _Garp_ , it doesn't matter that he is a marine, neither does it matter that he is strong, nor the fact that he caught the pirate king. Today he is just like any other lowly pirate and we are the justice's seekers, and justice Will Not Bend. Not today, not on our  **watch**."

Her voice was getting louder by the end, Luffy cheered loudly and excitedly after the last words.

Pops burst laughing loudly and declared approvingly, "You have way with words, cheeky brat."

Indeed, to come with such thing in sudden bind, you needed wits, self confidence, and piles of cunning.

"Why thank you, and who the hell are you?"

Ace hurriedly introduced him.

"Marcy, this is my captain, his name is..

"Whitebeard of course."

_Unlike her little brother, she knew of him (hopefully)._

" _Please_ , be polite," Ace was basically begging.

She could do worse than their little brother calling their father  _bread?_

Even though Ace explained that it was an unintentional and Pops seemed not to mind (Pops found the whole thing hilarious), some of his brothers seemed to mind.

How much worse was she? and just maybe it was a good thing that only few were listening in.

"Really Ace, when I ever not  _polite_?" She added immediately, a fake indignation filling her voice.

"Just so you know. I am not expecting an answer."

Ace seemed not sure what to do with himself.

" _Mister_  Whitebeard. Is that  _polite_  enough for you Ace?"

Ace palmed his face with both hands, or was he trying to hide his face, not bothering to answer.

"Mister Whitebeard, I would have preferred to have this conversation with you face to face, but beggars can't be choosers."

Pops seemed to be quite interested and very amused.

"Whatever you prefer, after all you are in your way here, we can have  _this conversation_  when you arrive."

"That is quiet  _kind_  of you, mister Whitebeard, then we will have our long, deep and meaningful conversation when we arrive, but if it isn't too much trouble could I _please_  ask you few questions?..  _Please._ "

Ace was shaking his head furiously at Pops direction, looking pleadingly at him. Pops ignored him, clutching the sake bottle once again in his hand and with an amused raised eyebrow bellowed.

"Fire away,  _cheeky brat._ "

Challenge accepted, Pops seemed into it.  _Too much_  for Marco's (and Ace's) liking. Ace was still shaking his head and mouthing 'please no'.

"What are your intentions toward Ace?" She demanded, her voice sounded menacing.

Ace stopped moving and was instead looking up at the sky in intensity, refusing to make any eye contact, his ears red as tomatoes. Maybe he should narrate this information to Marcy,.. Hmm, without the  _tomato_  bit. Marco was not an idiot and preferred not to bring her wrath on him (like several idiots that shall not be named), he still wasn't sure he was in the clear because of Ace's recklessness when it came to attacking those ships that got his bounty raised (how the hell could he had stopped that, she should know better!) that began her meltdown. He really preferred not to rock the boat so to speak).

Even though Whitebeard eyes were twinkling with amusement and warmth he answered seriously, "He is my son, and that's all there is to it."

Ace became even more scarlet, his freckles shining like a warning sign. Really! Marco would not be surprised if he had smoke rising from his ears, with him being  _fire_  that was very possible.

Marcy was not finished, he had feeling that  _few_  questions, would not be a few and lovely ones.

"What does being your son entails exactly? Please be  **specific**." She demanded.

He heard Aladine murmur to Jinbe that they were intruding on  _Marriage negotiations_ , (Ace being the  _bride_. Aladine was smart enough to speak quietly so Ace would not hear him or else they would be having  _roasted_  brotula for dinner) and that Jinbe should pay attention, this was important, he could learn a thing or two about what to expect in his future marriage. Jinbe was looking like he preferred to be anywhere but here (Marco could relate).

Whitebeard relaxed into his chair, Marco saw him swallow a laugh by taking a gulp of sake.

Marco needed a drink himself, not that it made him drunk, but he can pretend.

"What a father always wishes for his sons, to be happy and free."

"Father? but Ace already his fath..Ouch."

So Luffy and Marcy knew about Ace's biological father, and Luffy at least didn't find it to be anything out of the ordinary...

"Oh, right, I forget. Ace doesn't like him."

"I know." Pops said, looking right at tensed pale Ace (all the color had left him suddenly), who was trying to became smaller, but hearing this Ace looked up, and searchingly his eyes travelled to Pops's face, who was looking at Ace steadily, his face showing his unshaken determined resolve.

"You know?" Both of the siblings asked in surprise.

Jinbe and Aladine looked confused, and Marco gave them a warning look to stay out of this. He would speak with them later and make sure that anything personal was kept private.

"Yes." Pops said curtly with soft smile, keeping eye contact with abashed Ace. His color returning and small shy smile reappearing on his face.

"And?" Marcy demanded impatiently.

"Does it matter? Ace is  **Ace**."

Luffy didn't seem to agree.

"No. Ace is awesome, and strong, and he's the greatest big brother  _ever_."

Pops bellowed a joyous laugh.

"I apologize, you are right. He is all that and much more."

Luffy bellowed his own cheerful laugh, to Marco's ears his laugh was even louder than Pops,  _was he trying to compete for the louder laugh?_

"Ok. I approve! Ace you can join Bread's crew, he is nice."

"Thank you," Ace muttered dryly, his face even redder then before if possible. Really! Blushing suited him.

"Your welcome," Luffy laughed another loud high pitched laugh.

"So, you finally get it into your thick idiotic head that  _it_  doesn't matter."

"Ehh, yeah," Ace mumbled, cracking his fingers nervously.

Marcy sighed in disappointment.

"No, you didn't. But at least you made some process… imagine me patting you in the head and messing _up your fluffy hair_  saying job well done."

Ace spluttered, muttering under his breath about headstrong egoistic sisters, but he was still blushing and a shadow of smile was still on his face.

Marco might have found an ally,  _strong one_ , to help Ace became less guarded and more … free from the self doubt, self hate… .from the heavy chains he put on his own heart.

"Mister Whitebeard, I am going to hold into my _approval_  until after we have our long and deep conversation."

Pops' smile stretched his face, his crinkled eyes were shining with so many emotions, amusement and anticipation were the prominent ones.

"Wouldn't want it any other way,  _cheeky brat._ "

.

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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The conversation yet to end (sorry, but not really), but as I am over 16k, I thought it was safe to end it here. (*shrugging my shoulders in Ace's like manner*)
> 
> .
> 
> Looking forward to hear your thoughts about this chapter, especially because the story behind Luffy and Marcy leaving begun to unravel.
> 
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> 
> Please leave a review and cheer me up XD

**Author's Note:**

> Even though it was only partly beat’d, I wanted to share this chapter as gift to myself and you all. My birthday is in the 5th of September ^^.  
> .
> 
> What do you think? ^^ Be honest!
> 
> I published my stories on fanfiction (under the name rose7anne101), this is my first try posting on this site, so we will see if I continue posting here!


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